Bored while waiting for Godot.
Admittedly, I was a little down this week. I guess you could say I had the post-Turkey Day blues. Last week, I was on vacation, eating as though I was training for the Glutton Bowl. Coming back to “reality” was a bit of a letdown.
And then I found this little gem, which cheered me up immensely. It’s self-proclaimed Libertarian John Stossel getting smacked around by pro-wrestler “Dr. D” David Schultz. Remember kiddies, when a Libertarian gets beaten up, an angel gets its wings…
For the first time since I was four years old, I am at a house my parent’s own in a place other than Orange County. Now, I won’t reveal the exact city in which their new house resides, but let’s just say, “They’re not in Irvine any more.” Another hint? Well, this guy is being tried in their county. Yes.
Now, before it sounds too much like I’m bagging on this place, it’s actually quite beautiful. Stunningly so, actually. The view above, which is the view out my parent’s living room window, is quite breathtaking. Oddly enough, my parent’s community is primarily retirees who moved out of California, and who are not involved in the local religious craziness. True, the only stores in town are Wal-Mart, and…the other Wal-Mart. There are seven churches within a three mile distance, and the liquor laws are draconian. But no place is perfect.
On a side note, I did see a polygamist and one of his wives at the Wal-Mart. Given that I never get a chance to utter such a sentence in Santa Barbara, where we have neither polygamists nor Wal-Marts, I was pretty excited to see one. It was kind of like going bird watching, with my dad elbowing me saying, “Look! There’s one!”, and him and I tip-toeing down the Wal-Mart aisles like we were creeping through brush trying not to scare them away. One thing I will say, the wife I saw certainly didn’t look like any of the wives on Big Love. The husband was nothing to write home about, either.
Aside from the polygamists, in which there were a disappointing few, it was also not uncommon to see women at the Wal-Mart surrounded by four or five blond-haired children. So plentiful they were that I wondered if there was some breeding program for a future production of Triumph of the Will.
All of this aside, I’m happy for my folks. They are making retired life seem pretty damn nice. The community is nice, and while there is a religious presence here, it’s not overwhelming. And had they not moved here, I would have never become familiar with the term Jack Mormon.
Reading Jennifer’s recent post on an alleged sexual assault committed by the PFP in Oaxaca, I was reminded of a couple of incidents that recently occurred in Los Angeles, just in case anyone was thinking to themselves, “Stuff like that could never happen here.”
The last few weeks have not favored law enforcement in Los Angeles. First, there was a video that circulated around YouTube a few months ago, showing two LAPD officers punching a suspect in the face while trying to handcuff him. The video shows one officer sitting on the suspect’s abdomen with another officer placing his shin across the suspect’s neck while punching him several times in the face. The suspect repeatedly says “I can’t breath” during the course of the video. While a Superior Court Judge has absolved the officers of any wrong doing, the FBI is now investigating. Incidentally, the charges against the suspect were dropped, and he plead no contest to resisting arrest due to his initially running from the police.
So if that wasn’t interesting enough, there was this video that came out of UCLA last week of a UCLA student being tasered several times in the UCLA library after failing to show his ID to the security guard. The security guard called the UC police department, and the following occurred (Warning: this video contains profanity, because one does not typically scream “golly gee that smarts” while being repeatedly tasered):
According the The Daily Bruin:
During the altercation between Tabatabainejad [the student] and the officers, bystanders can be heard in the video repeatedly asking the officers to stop and requesting their names and identification numbers. The video showed one officer responding to a student by threatening that the student would “get Tased too.” At this point, the officer was still holding a Taser.
Such a threat of the use of force by a law enforcement officer in response to a request for a badge number is an “illegal assault,” [said Peter Eliasberg, managing attorney at the ACLU of Southern California].
“It is absolutely illegal to threaten anyone who asks for a badge - that’s assault,” he said.
…
According to a UCPD press release, Tabatabainejad went limp and refused to exit as the officers attempted to escort him out. The release also stated Tabatabainejad “encouraged library patrons to join his resistance.” At this point, the officers “deemed it necessary to use the Taser in a ‘drive stun’ capacity.”
“He wasn’t cooperative; he wouldn’t identify himself. He resisted the officers,” Young said.
Neither the video footage nor eyewitness accounts of the events confirmed that Tabatabainejad encouraged resistance, and he repeatedly told the officers he was not fighting and would leave.
Working with plenty of undergraduates over the last few years, I can understand wishing it was possible to literally beat sense into someone. Using a taser on a student who is handcuffed, not resisting, and clearly not a danger - that certainly seems excessive to me.
So remember seven days ago when I posted a little note about the atrocious Bank of America shill piece set to U2’s One? Well, leave it to David Cross to cover the bloody song:
Now that’s funny.
When I decided to add a “Movie” section, I thought it might be difficult to choose an inaugural film to review. I felt that the movie that kicks off this section should be something special. I have no interest in providing my thoughts on Spiderman, or even Borat, as those films are usually done to death by other people. I wanted the films in this section to be somewhat unique - movies that most people wouldn’t think about. Given that I had just watched The Warriors (1979) last night, I thought it would be a perfect film to start off with.
Real quick, I have a tendency to rate films on a rather blatant two star rating system. Two stars is a good movie, one star is “ehhhh”, and zero stars is a waste of time. No half-stars, and nothing too complicated. I actually hate star rating systems on principle, but in some cases they are useful. Anyway, on to The Warriors…
The Warriors (1979) is a film set “sometime in the future” in a dystopian New York City where gangs rule the streets. The gangs, in this case, are not the same kind of gangs that are in movies like Boys in the Hood, or Menace 2 Society, but instead are cartoon-like archetypes of various New York City burroughs. To name just a few, there is a gang of mimes in Greenwich Village called The High Hats, a gang of baseball players in called The Baseball Furies, and an all-female gang called The Lizzies. And you have an up-and-coming gang from Coney Island called The Warriors.
The plot of The Warriors is simple. Cyrus, the leader of The Gramercy Riffs, has called delegates from all of the New York City gangs together, in Brooklyn, in an attempt to end the inter-gang rivalries, bring peace, and take control of the city from the police. During his speech, he is assassinated and the murder is pinned on The Warriors. The rest of the film is spent focusing on The Warriors trying to battle back to their hideout in Coney Island, with police and every gang in New York City after them. Believe it or not, the story is loosely based on Anabasis from early Greek literature.
Given the simplicity of the plot, it’s not really a question of whether or not The Warriors will make it back to Coney Island, but who will make it back, how they will get there, and what will happen to them along the way. While you would expect a movie about gangs to be violent, The Warriors is fairly tame by today’s standards. The fight scenes are all stylized in a very comic book way, if for no other reason than the gangs involved are cartoon-like themselves. In some ways, the style of this film is very much a precursor to films like Sin City, which favor style over substance, but that style is what makes these films enjoyable nevertheless.
Aside from the style, it’s the subtle, and in some cases not so subtle, moments of homo-eroticism that really dominate the film. Take, for instance, the scene in which three of The Warriors, who were separated from the group, hook up with the all-woman gang, The Lizzies. The Lizzies take the unsuspecting Warriors back to their hideout for “some fun”. Not only is one of The Warriors completely disinterested in the women’s advances, but The Lizzies themselves have scenes in which their sexual orientation is a bit ambiguous. Obviously, their name, The Lizzies, is also a play on that ambiguity.
It’s not just the situations that play themselves up to this homo-eroticism, but it’s the names of The Warriors themselves. Swan, Cochise, Cowboy, Snow, Rembrandt… these are names that might be better suited for The Village People then for a rough gang.
Another scene that particularly stands out is a love scene between Swan, the leader of The Warriors, and Mercy, a woman who has joined them along the way. Swan is so reluctant to engage in anything physical with Mercy, even when she throws herself at him - literally begging for him to keep going - he simply insults her and walks away. Swan appears torn, as though being physical with Mercy is somehow uncomfortable.
The Warriors is a very enjoyable film, and has seen a slight resurgence since a video game based on the movie was released last year. The style and campiness of the film really make a worthwhile experience. ** out of **
