Ricky Jay and Deadwood: Jewel's Boot is Made for Walking

This one is for Ricky Jay.

If you're like me, you've forgotten just how good Deadwood is. You last watched it ten or more years ago. It was one of the first long-form HBO dramas you took in, when the idea of binge-watching a long form TV series was relatively new - many, many series ago, before you got to Dexter or The Wire or  True Blood or Breaking Bad or The Walking Dead or any of a hundred notable others. You haven't forgotten that it IS good - that you really got into it back when - and you're cheering to hear that they're finally going to make a feature film of it, all these years later -  but there are tons of things about it you simply don't recall. Like, say, the cast, beyond a certain handful of names. You can, of course, bring to mind Ian McShane, Timothy Olyphant,  Keith Carradine, William Sanderson and homegirl Molly Parker (yay team!), and maybe you're even impressed with yourself for remembering that many of them, but - take a minute, here, and try to recall who else is in it. Like, do you even remember that Ricky Jay is in it? Or Garret Dillahunt, or Powers Boothe, or Peter Coyote? (Wait a sec - Powers Boothe, Peter Coyote, and Keith Carradine are all in the same show? Wasn't there some other movie that they all were in together...? Hmmm. Speaking of which, do you remember that Walter Hill directed the first episode?). And was Kim Dickens even a name on your radar before Deadwood?

Or, say, do you even remember Brad Dourif as Doc? I mean, it's okay: I love Brad Dourif, yet still, I was  going, "oh right!" Didn't remember John Hawkes, either - someone I loved from Benny's World of Blood in From Dusk Til Dawn, which I had seen years before Deadwood, but not a name I actually knew until a few years later, when Winter's Bone came out and he firmly made a mark on my filmgoing psyche.

Then - speaking of things you have forgotten - there's the dialogue: can you even remember a single conversation from the series, besides Wu and Swearengen having - as esteemed/ missed Georgia Straight writer and UBC prof Mark Harris once remarked on in class - a conversation where the only word common between them is "cocksucker?" Other than that, and the overall high level of profanity - which I also had somewhat forgotten - do you remember a single bit of dialogue?

The "cocksucker" conversation takes place in Episode 10 - "Mister Wu," which, thanks to the Minutemen's cover of Steely Dan, I keep wanting to represent as "Doctor Wu." It's where the first season really starts to roll, as others have noticed - and the episode that first shows us the Chinese district of Deadwood, setting up the tabling of anti-Chinese racism as a means by which certain powerful figures attempt to direct the herd, exploiting the masses' fear of the Other to help solidify their own power base. These ideas only begin to get full expression in the even-stronger Eleventh Episode, the weirdly-named "Jewel's Boot is Made for Walking," which stands out as the writerly high point of Season One, maybe even the single strongest episode all around. Do you remember who wrote it?

Yeah, folks: the answer is, Ricky Jay.

There are a billion brilliant turns in the episode, a billion brilliant flourishes that will fill your heart with fondness for Jay, who has, as of this writing, recently died. It was if, watching the show, we conjured him, sitting at his keyboard in underwear and a t-shirt, letting his imagination reign. Again, if you're like me, you like him, and maybe even have been meaning to show your significant other some David Mamet in Jay's memory. (It wasn't for Jay that I got Erika and I onto this kick, because I'd forgotten that Jay was even in Deadwood, but it's a pleasant and convenient coincidence indeed; rest assured, House of Games is now on the menu, too). It is the only episode Jay wrote, and one of only five writing credits to his name on IMDB.

The entire point of this post is to say, if you've kinda forgotten just how good Deadwood is, if you're happy there's a feature film out there being made, and if you're a fan of Ricky Jay, you really have to start season one at the beginning, to ride out the slightly uneven first few episodes, so to have all the pieces fresh and in place in your mind when Jay's episode comes around. You will, I think, be very glad you did (and even moreso if, unlike me, you have somehow previously missed Deadwood, which I'm sure is the case for a few of you; you've missed something great, and soon to be made relevant and timely again).

If you are unconvinced of any of that, if you have never seen the series, if you want more provocation, let me remind you of a few details from Ricky Jay's episode.

A recap blogger - didn't know there was such a thing - opines that an early scene goes on way too long, but I disagree. It's where the handicapped woman - Al's maid, Jewel, abusively referred to as "the gimp" and treated as a figure of uncomfortable, dismissive comedy in the first few episodes - walks with great difficulty down a muddy street, mocked for her twisted step, stared at derisively from the Gem's upstairs window. all so she can bring a book to the Doc (why she is doing this I will leave for you to [re]discover, though obviously the episode title gives a bit of a clue). The scene does take a long time to come to fruition, but do consider that up to that point, she has been a peripheral figure in the series, her role confined to being the cripple who sweeps up the Gem. She's barely had dialogue before this episode. Suddenly she's, in many ways, the driving force of a scene, fully humanized in a way I don't think I've seen a handicapped person be before on TV.  In fact, I don't think I have seen any other non-able-bodied person ever made the focus of anything in a television series; maybe I'm watching the wrong series.

Also consider that walking a few blocks unassisted down the street is perhaps a meaningful challenge for her character. This puts us in a political/ moral territory - we are, in essence, walking in her shoes, or at least alongside her. While said recap blogger may not have found her journey particularly moving or meaningful, you would imagine that anyone watching who was NOT able bodied would find the scene quite remarkable and rich. While there is cruelty in it - there is no attempt to sweep racism, ablism, or any other human evil under the rug in Deadwood -  ultimately the scene serves a very  moral end indeed.

You'll wonder - unless you're a big Facts of Life fan, maybe - if the actress really is, as she appears, non-able bodied herself. It would almost be offensive if she were not, the equivalent of having someone in blackface play an African American. But fear not, Geri Jewell, the actress, indeed has cerebral palsy. She is, I gather, a motivational speaker, and talks about her involvement in the series here. That's a very moving and interesting clip, where she talks about how the character came to be named after the actress, and how she helped develop her own character in correspondence with David Milch. It gets even more interesting when you discover that Jewell is queer, and may have written her character as such (see the link above - she talks about Jewel being "friends" with Calamity Jane, another remarkable character in the series, one who trashes gender norms left and right). I'm only now discovering that Jewell came out as gay in a memoir called I'm Walking as Straight as I Can, punning not only on the word "straight" but also on the title I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can, but suffice it to say, this is an interesting woman playing an interesting character, representing two groups that are under-represented, except in the tritest of terms, on television.

And Ricky Jay gets to write all these scenes. There are great lines throughout the episode - as when Swearengen inquires of Jewel as to her purpose for visiting Doc, and she retorts, sarcastically, "I'm knocked up." There are also turns of vulgarity that put Quentin Tarantino to shame ("hey, you suck my dick and shut the fuck up, huh," Al says at one point, in what is possibly the greatest ever filmed monologue delivered by a character receiving head). There are also scenes with the mentally infirm Reverend Smith (played by Ray McKinnon) that go beyond the normal bounds of TV. As his brain degenerates under a tumour, Rev. Smith gives an impassioned sermon to a steer in the street about circumcision and the law ("if thou art a transgressor of the law, thy circumcision becomes uncircumcision"). He could practically be reciting Artaud, or perhaps mad Nietzsche embracing whipped horses in the street. Jay's compassion for Jewel, and Reverend Smith, and his ideas about the way racism functions in Deadwood (the town, not the series) may seem a little on-the-nose at times - I can see someone of more reactionary blood finding the episode too "politically correct," or something - until you consider how truly rich, radical, and intelligent the writing is, regardless. It may not be entirely subtle - but hell, neither was Shakespeare; this is, after all, drama.   

...and so it goes. Overall the episode develops a half-dozen neglected characters, brings to fruition several important themes, and seems to have a wonderfully developed idea of human psychology behind it, as no one, whatever their point of view, is presented as stupid or incorrect; everyone has their own angle, their own perspective, their own reason for doing what they do, and they all express themselves quite eloquently, showing the breadth of Jay's understanding of their characters. It really s like watching really great theatre - the characters drive the episode, with dialogue as their principal tool. It's the key episode of the first season of Deadwood and the one that will hook you so deeply that you will have to watch Seasons Two and Three hard after, whether you've seen the series before or not; it will definitely whet your appetite for the "more" that is "to come."

So: with the film in production, it's a great time to return to this town, to contemplate its ideas and re-familiarize yourself with its themes, characters, and delicious profanity. There's a lot more I could say, but I have things to do, people to be, and anything I do remark upon further threatens to take away from your (re) discovering it yourself, so I'll shut up. The screenplay for the episode is online here, if you're curious. Personally, I would just stop everything and find Season One, Episode One and get started. Hell, if time permits, I may even watch Episode Eleven a second time.

Rest in Peace, Ricky Jay, and thanks.

Therefore, if thy uncircumcision keeps the, uh the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be count for circumcision? Yea, the uncircumcision that is by nature fulfilling his law shall judge thee, who by by letter and uh circumcision transgresses the law.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=deadwood&episod

Bob Mould in April

Might not be too much of me online for awhile - I have some Bev Davies stuff to do, but my next big gesture is probably going to be Bob Mould in April. I am excited about that show. I have become quite fond of how happy and well-adjusted Bob Mould seems, and am discovering that I may actually have grown out of Zen Arcade a little myself (I still love it, but not the way I did when I was a younger man; it is, really, a younger man's music). 

Anyhow, I'm looking forward to speaking to him, if it happens, and to seeing him again, this time in trio form.

Meantime, the new Big Takeover has articles on DOA (parts of which were previously previewed here, though most of it has not previously seen print) and my interview with Brother JT (actually, the majority of that is below, not too far back, but people who enjoyed that, or enjoy his music, might want to read the magazine, as well). 

Be well - I won't be around much.

BIson at the Astoria, 2018

Man, that was a nice change: I actually went out to a gig last night! Did a fun little interview earlier in the week with James of Bison - a kind of ridiculous one, on my part, actually, but I have interviewed this band many, many times, so I just tried to have some fun with it. I arrived early enough to see both opening acts (Teeth to Your Throat and Pet Blessings), both of whom were enjoyable - though I had a Lee Child Reacher novel signed out on a one-week loan from the library, already two days overdue, that I wanted to finish, so I sat off to the side and read while they were on (sorry, guys)... which prompted some odd conversation from people passing me by on the way to the men's room: look, that dude is reading a book! I hope he's not a spy... But rest assured that I put away the book for Bison.

And what a fun set it was! It turns out the little "alcove" in the centre of the stage kinda protects you from the mosh pit, so there I was, front and centre, with my recently acquired Huawei cell phone, which has a kinda awesome camera in it. I restrained myself for the most part but eventually broke down and took some photos, then shot a video for the final song (unless they did an encore, but if they did, it was after I had to go catch the Skytrain). Was fun to say hello to James and Dan, who, at this point, know me a bit, and even more fun to see Eugene of Black Wizard at the kit. I miss Matt Wood - I hope he's all right, and that whatever "personal journey" he's on, as James put it, isn't taking him through too many dark places - but thought Eugene was a really great replacement, actually. He more or less follows Matt's bouncy, minimal style - at least compared to Brad's Keith-Moon-y fills - but he visually evokes Pipefitter of Hard Core Logo a little bit, compared to the obvious Animal of Matt. I will let the photos speak for itself, but I am kind of happy with the video, too... my legs are a bit stiff from the standing but it was totally worth it.

Shane's new haircut totally suits him, whattaya think?

Cassavetes' Gloria revisited: Gloria, I never knew ye

Back during my days of obsession with John Cassavetes' canon, I never was that impressed with  Gloria - a film he initially apparently wrote as a kid's movie, then ended up directing himself, at the request of his wife Gena Rowlands, when she ended up getting the lead role. She plays, in case you've missed it, a tough New Yorker with associations with the mob who ends up protecting a six year old Puerto Rican kid from her former friends. Back when I first saw the movie, I found the kid annoying, Rowlands unconvincing, the screenplay corny, and the premise trivial; you can find elements of Cassavetes' concerns - the individual versus the mob, for example, better developed in The Killing of a Chinese Bookie - if you are sensitive to them, but it basically just played (I thought) like a genre film, and not a very compelling one. Even if I had liked it, I don't go to Cassavetes for my genre movies, generally. I think I saw it twice: the first time filled with expectation and no awareness that I wasn't about to see something on the level of Faces or A Woman Under the Influence, and once, having read Ray Carney explaining and defending the film in one of his early books on Cassavetes, trying to come to terms with what it really was, to forgive it for not having been what I was looking for. I failed to achieve that end: it was still mostly just annoying. 

That last viewing was maybe thirty years ago, and - thanks to it being not so easy to find on DVD, and my genuinely not having liked it much even on second viewing - I was more than happy to leave it back there, as not being a real Cassavetes film, a lesser work, a digression in his canon - maybe better than Big Trouble, which I also haven't seen since my initial attempts, but still a failure. I mean, it almost always happens that the films I rejected or found problematic in my early 20's, should I feel compelled to revisit them, don't improve with time and maturity; I almost always end up feeling the same way, I did, and at best, end up rubber-stamping my own past evaluations:  "Oh, yes, I remember why I didn't like this the first time! I must have been a pretty perceptive young man." While in some cases it does happen that films I loved in my youth don't impress me much now, it seldom goes the other way. There really aren't many films that end up meriting a complete reappraisal, that turn on their axis, benefit from my years of living and having exposed myself to a wider range of cinema and end up seeming like great movies. So there aren't many cases where I end up second guessing myself and going back. 

Well, I sure am glad I did that with Gloria. A few scattered observations before I duck out the door for breakfast:

1. The Twilight Time Blu-Ray looks gorgeous,  and being able to appreciate the filmic qualities of Gloria more - the colours, the framing, the loving depiction of New York locations, even the colours of Gena's costumes and the jazzy/ painterly title sequence - really, really add to the experience of the film, which I'd previously only ever seen on VHS tapes. (Note: the images I'm illustrating this with are not screengrabs from the Blu, just things I found floating around online, so they're not a fair index of how good this BD looks). 

2. The story and performances actually work. The ending maybe is still a little hokey, but in fact, Gena and the kid do a pretty great job. You start to realize that, while not a "good actor," the kid - 

John Adames - is actually doing interesting and real "kidlike" things, like trying to talk tough or presume a level of maturity he doesn't have; the performance, as scuplted by Cassavetes, is almost a commentary on things that children DON'T usually do in movies. And at least one close-up of an angry Gloria stands up there as one of Rowlands' better moments on screen, where she really, really, really gets to show how tough she can be. 

3.  The film has a great time capsule quality of New York in the late 1970's, and there are faces at every turn that will give you pleasure - some quite random, like the black guy in the Subway in the "I'm a Pepper" t-shirt, and some because the actors will be people you recognize (Buck Henry, brief appearances from Tom Noonan and Lawrence Tierney, and a small but memorable role from Cassavetes' regular Val Avery). It plays as a sort of fond portrait of New York and New Yorkers. And aspects of that definitely do relate to Cassavetes' other films, even if they're on a lesser level of magnitude; you might note from movies like Love Streams that he has a particular fondness for taxi cabs, and surely this is his most cab-intensive film, with some of the taxi drivers - who I presume are almost always played by real taxi drivers - getting close ups all their own.  

4. The soundtrack is great! Bill Conti is the composer. I've probably enjoyed many of his other scores, but this one really stood out. It's good. 

5. It also turns out to be a pretty good place to engage your non-Cassavetes-obsessed friends, family, and spouses with his work, a pretty gentle stepping off point - or at least that's how it worked here. Erika enjoyed the story as much as I did, to my delight. Truth is, I have been kind of scared to expose her to Cassavetes' "real" films, in part to protect her from their more demanding/ harrowing qualities (she doesn't do "emotionally harrowing" all that well, as witnessed by the traumas of having shown her, without sufficient preparation, Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark); in part to protect myself from being hurt if, say, she doesn't get/ like them; and in part because I haven't been consuming much Cassavetes myself lately and am not sure how *I* will feel on revisiting his more demanding movies. Anyhow, I feel like we're now one step closer to being able to sit down to A Woman Under the Influence. Or maybe Love Streams. Or...

6. If Gloria is, in fact, not particularly great as a "Cassavetes film," if you can just park the baggage that comes with that name, it works just fine as a genre film. It's a good little gangster movie, a compelling story. There's a reason there's been one official remake (of the same name, with Sharon Stone in the lead - which, note, I have not seen) and a few obvious homages (Julia, with Tilda Swinton, which I have seen, and loved, is maybe the best of them; I don't care for The Professional - Leon, whatever - and I haven't seen Ultraviolet). If you shake loose the expectations and hopes that you might have, you might find yourself, as I did, pleasantly engaged with its story, caring about its characters, and - at the end, if you watch it without trying to force themes onto it from Cassavetes' other films - you might discover that there are actually a few of those present after all; you just aren't going to be pummeled by them, which is what I fear is how I'm going to feel the next time I try A Woman Under the Influence. In its own way, Gloria is a Cassavetes' film, after all - but a somewhat gentler, subtler one (which may seem an odd thing to say for a movie that has a car flip over in it, maybe, but there it is). And it'd be a great film to watch in proximity to those other very Cassavetean non-Cassavetes films, Mikey and Nickey (coming soon on Blu Ray from Criterion!) and Machine Gun McCain. 

Machine Gun McCain is still my favourite of the three, mind you, but Gloria has happily found a home next to it on my shelf and in my estimation.  

The Strangest Game of Scrabble in My Life

One of the few games I play on my phone is Scrabble. It's been a favourite of mine since childhood. I'm pretty good - my scores, especially on the phone, tend to be routinely over 400 points, and I have been over 600 points - both on the phone and in physical games - on more than one occasion. I don't usually play with other people, since I'm not that big on connecting with strangers online these days, and don't want to annoy my friends by beating them too badly. Sometimes I do play against Erika, when and if she doesn't mind my winning - usually if we're stuck waiting for a ferry or something, but occasionally while we're in bed, passing a phone back and forth.

Last night we played the strangest game of Scrabble in my life. My app, which is old, has been malfunctioning for awhile: when you pass the phone and start your turn, you can see the letters of the previous player still on your board. You have to press some button on the game like "pass," for example, then cancel the pass option, in order for your own letters to revert to you; a normal game can then be played. But my already faulty app got transferred to a new phone yesterday, and we ended up with new problems manifesting themselves: now the other person's letters, for example, sometimes wouldn't go away if you tried the trick mentioned above. Sometimes you'd be in the process of playing them and suddenly your letters would revert unexpectedly, of their own accord, but sometimes you'd end up playing the letters of the other person (and getting points for the word); at such times, when Erika was playing with my letters for her turn, her letters would sometimes appear for me, so we were essentially swapping identities. Finally, and best of all, as an added, "bonus" malfunction, the Q appeared twice - was played once, then re-appeared on someone's board, then disappeared again; and the Z, of which there is also only one tile, appeared twice, and WAS ALLOWED TO BE PLAYED TWICE. This is an actual photo Erika took of my phone screen: note the Za/ Zags and the Words/Waltz, each using a different virtual Z:

I must say, this malfunctioning Scrabble - arbitrarily changing your letters mid-play, switching our identities, and suddenly providing extra copies of high-value letters - was pretty entertaining to play. We had no input into how or when the game would change its rules, so we had to continually adapt to new and chaotic circumstances - just like in life!  There may be a fun idea here for game developers: for people who routinely play straightforward, rule-governed board games on their phones, create a new app called "Break My App," that completely gnarls the rules the game operates by, introduces random rule-changes and malfunctions that the game player must then figure out and adjust to: "What happened there? How do we play the game now?"

The only trick is, it can make figuring out who won challenging. (For the record, it seemed like the lack of predictable rules put Erika at an advantage last night; she won, though it may be because occasionally the game assigned her my points!). 

Unleash the Archers: A Brittney Slayes interview and a couple of outtakes

I did a big email interview with Brittney Slayes, apropos of tonight's show at the Rickshaw and Unleash the Archers' new album. 

I left out a couple of questions from that piece, however - they seemed digressive, and/or my questions seemed, after she answered them, to have been unnecessary, the wrong ones to have asked, or they just didn't easily fit into the flow of the piece. 

I also gotta apologize to guitarists Andrew Kingsley and Grant Truesdell and drummer Scott Buchanan - I was aware that I had not used their names in the piece, and had hoped at the very least that I could stick them in the caption, but that isn't always in my control! Fantastic musicianship on the album, which I don't do justice to in the interview - though anyone wanting a taste of the playing might want to start here. 

All that said, here are a couple of outtakes:

A: Just wondering – were you a Dio fan? (He’s sort of the king of myth-based metal lyrics by me). Ever see him live? Ever interact with him?

B: Yes I am definitely a big fan of Dio, his lyrical style is super inspirational for me. Every song tells a story! Unfortunately I never got to see him live nor meet him though, one of my bigger regrets in life for sure!

A: Curious if you have an opinion on this, but why do people who get into myth seem often to swing to the right, politically? Is there something about fascism and myth that go together hand in hand? Do fascists just love to exploit myth to their own ends, or is there something in the deep waters of myth, with stories of heroes and battles, that is inherently fascist?

B: Perhaps the fact that myth lends itself to open interpretation allows right-leaning persons to mold them into devices for furthering their political agendas, using them as points of reference for what to and what not to do in accordance with their views and opinions. All things can be twisted and interpreted to reflect a particular ideology, in my opinion, which is one of the reasons I found studying history to be so interesting. In one of my songs I wrote “History can only be written by the victors” because that is what we were taught to be the truth. Every text book, every memoir, every pamphlet is twisted by bias and opinion, nothing is really fact, especially concerning myth and history. Everything we have and know of the past was written by someone that had a particular reason for recording it, some bias, so you can take anything you read and use it to push your agenda, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to listen or consider it to be ‘truth’ just because it’s been passed down through the ages.

A: Also curious if you ever read Nietzsche or reference him in your lyrics...?

B: No reference to Nietzsche, although his ideologies are fun to debate I try to avoid any and all suggestion of political, ideological or sociological leanings in my music.
A: Trivial question, but do you (or the band) have favourite movies? Favourite books?

B: Favourite movies: Willow, Fifth Element, Interstellar (in that order)

Favourite books: The Black Company series by Glen Cook, the Revelation Space series by Alastair Reynolds, The Passage series by Justin Cronin.

Thanks, Brittney - see you tonight! 

No Dead Boys for me! (But you should go!)

Just a little announcement: I will not be at the Dead Boys, November 10th at Pat's Pub. I have Other Plans That I Will Not Change on that weekend, I have just recalled. I take consolation in knowing that two smaller punks can probably fit in Pat's in the space I would have taken up; plus those of you who would rather not run into me at gigs can take heart and buy tickets accordingly. I congratulate the event organizer (whose initials are also DB!) for pulling this off - getting a last minute gig booked for the band when he saw they were coming as close as Bellingham. I applaud, too, his choice of opening acts: I don't know the Gung-Hos (though holy shit, I kinda want to; they seem pretty musically appropriate for this show) but having the Alien Boys on a bill with the Dead Boys is an inspired gesture. By the by, I only just figured out that the Alien Boys are PROBABLY NAMED FOR A SONG BY THE WIPERS! - speaking of American punk prototype bands out there. I dunno if I will be able to do more press for this but we'll see. Now go buy your tickets while you still can.

Gerry Hannah writes again

It's nice to see a passionate (yet reasonable/ rational) new piece of writing from Gerry Hannah. He blogs pretty infrequently - his previous post was from before Justin Trudeau was elected - and he hasn't been coming round with the New Questioning Coyote Brigade lately (his roots-oriented rock band, which offered twangier arrangements of Subhumans classics, songs from his neglected but excellent solo album Coming Home - which I interviewed him about here - as well as the occasional surprise cover; last I saw them, the Byrds' "Wasn't Born to Follow" was in his set, and he was talking about a reworking of Steppenwolf's "The Ostrich," which was a song I actually didn't know. I've since bought a few of those more political Steppenwolf albums and appreciate the tip).

I have about fifteen minutes before I have to get in the shower to get ready for work, so I don't have much time to contribute to the discussion, but the thing that hit home the most for me in the article was the section dealing with racism, in which Gerry talks about trying to have a reasonable argument with someone on Facebook in response to an article entitled "Don't Kid Yourself, All White People Are Racists." Gerry writes:

I found the second half of the headline disturbing and I said so. My comment went like this: All people are racist. In other words; all people have racist tendencies. The difference is that some folks acknowledge it, accept that it’s undesirable and work to change it, while others don’t—regardless of their race. I went on to say, that I don’t believe in what I called “racial essentialism”. By racial essentialism, I meant the attributing of a wholly subjective, negative quality, to a particular race. And I pointed out that this reminded me of early separatist feminism, when men in the Left were unequivocally told that “all men are rapists”. I said it’s time to move beyond such unhelpful rhetoric.

Amen - though a friend of mine points out that Gerry may be trying to "reason with a fever," here, which will probably be the best turn of phrase I've heard all day. But his writing brought to mind a very striking, if brief, discussion that I had with some people on Facebook myself (it actually involved someone Gerry may or may not be familiar with, if he paid attention to the later incarnations of Tunnel Canary; the new vocalist for the band Mya Mayhem, was one of the responders, though she posts under a different name on Facebook. She was part of a large article I did during the time of these reunions, so I'd interacted with her before, though had had no cause to disagree with her).

In any case, someone had posted an article - I think dealing with Black Lives Matter; hell, it might have been the same article Gerry  mentions - that argued, "essentially" - I will try to do justice to it, though I may fail - that because white people existed at the top of a historical hierarchy, using racism to put and keep people of colour down, and benefitting from this injustice, only they could be racist. It was impossible for people of colour to be racist against white people, the way the concept was being defined, because people of colour - whatever they might say about white people, were punching up, so to speak - they were addressing the long history of systemic injustice, so whatever they might say about white people, it wasn't actually "about" race; it was about the systemic, historical injustice, which they had been on the receiving end of. So they could say whatever they liked.

I did a deep double-take. It seemed like an interesting move, but a deeply dodgy one, and it brought to mind all sorts of prejudices that I've encountered over the years, having lived in Japan, and worked with ESL students over the years, that I had chalked up as non-white racism, ranging from a Japanese confiding in me that they thought black people were scary to a Brazilian student (who I guess technically was white but his accent and darker complexion would have marked him as a racial other in North America) trying to engage me in discussion about The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (which he'd read in translation). Or what about Jews saying nasty things about Arabs? Or what about Arabs saying nasty things about Jews? Would groups who weren't white saying prejudicial things about groups that were also not white not count as racism? I had always understood racism as a behaviour that people from any group could partake in, by overgeneralizing negatively about another group, white or not.

Understand: I actually agreed with some of what the original poster was saying - it IS a different thing for someone from an oppressed minority, from someone who has been on the receiving end of systemic injustice, to make an overgeneralization. For example, when a pissed-off Japanese accused me of "having won the war" at a bar, referring to America's victory in World War II, which he held me, as a white person, responsible for, I didn't get all hostile and indignant (I believe I retorted, "won the war? I was born in 1968!" - but I didn't hold it against the guy, actually; it happens he was a prick, in other ways, but that particular bit of  prickishess was kind of understandable and interesting to encounter). For another example, when Robert Fisk was nearly beaten to death by rock-wielding Afghan villagers, as a representative of the enemy race, he was quite able to forgive them; he understood where they were coming from. Racial hatred IS a different thing when it's coming from victims towards perceived victimizers. I had no problem with that. But it's still racism, and it seemed really, really dubious to try to define "racism" as something that only white people could do to non-whites.

Or for instance - and this was the story I actually posted on the Facebook page - what about me? I explained in a brief post that when I was in Japan, I briefly explored the dating scene; I was somewhat shy and tentative at the time - I was kinda awkward with women from the same culture, and even less certain of myself in a totally different one - but at one point, I put an ad in an English-language magazine, saying I wanted to date Japanese women. I got two responses very quickly: both from Japanese men, writing nasty notes telling me that they didn't want foreigners dating their women and that I should take my evil white ways home. Yankee Go Home, essentially.  I can't quote exactly - it was 20 years ago, almost - but surely such notes (I wrote on Facebook) counted as racism.

Mya answered - quite reasonably, though my mind reeled at her response - that because what I encountered was not SYSTEMIC, but isolated incidents - it was bigotry, not racism. Racism could only exist in the context of systemic injustice.

I out Mya here because hell, maybe she could explain this further (I have no issue with her). I continued the discussion by saying that seemed like an odd act of hair-splitting to me, and that I was quite comfortable thinking of racism that someone from any group could do to someone from any other group, by overgeneralizing in a negative way; it didn't seem necessary to me to re-define the concept. It might be more forgiveable and understandable if someone was punching up, but it didn't make it less racist.

That's when one of her friends weighed in - someone whose name I had forgotten, save that it was on the hippy-dippy side, like "Cheerful Unicorn" or "Whispering Rainbow" or something like that - to wave their finger and say that one does not "explore" relationships with people of colour, and that if that was my attitude, I deserved what I got.

At which point I exited the argument. It was, in fact, an interesting argument, and it would have been nice to pursue it, but it seemed like in fact, the point was not to have an intelligent discussion about anything, but to build in-groups by waging war against out-groups, such as the one I was clearly a member of. Well, whatever: fuck these people, I thought.

Anyhow, that's what Gerry's piece made me think about, but there's a lot more to it than that, so go read his original post, linked above. Nice to see you writing again, Gerry! (Any new music coming out?).