Political Assholery

It just so happens that I am seeing Michael Moore the same week I am reading Hunter S. Thompson, catching Ted Nugent's Surviving Ted, and watching a Bunuel film. All four are major politically charged people who say things using methods which invoke strong reactions from people.

Bunuel is the smoothest at this as he doesn't deal with any major political issues of the day, so much as he does broad political views, thus they can't be disproven factually. However, ideologically they are hard to take. When the DIA showed The Milky Way, a 27 year old religious man raged. An hour or so into the movie he ran up to the projection booth, stopped the movie and started ripping the film. The image on the screen? The stomping of a St. Christopher medal into mud. He felt this was a Catholic-baiting, anti-religion movie. Interesting reaction, when even the Catholic Bishops approved it for adults, though with reservations. Bunuel is angry and shows provocative imagery for his points.

Then, we have Michael Moore who also dabbled in film, as well as in writing and in speech giving. Moore is an ass, pure and simple. Its not just that I don't completely agree with everything he says, it is that he is a jerk in his mannerisms and his methods. Bowling For Columbine has a moment which essentially says "While I have been saying throughout the movie that the availability of weaponry is not the problem with violence in America as Canada has more firearms than us, I will stop K-Mart from selling bullets to stop violence in America." Hm. Its not the availablity thats the issue, but we'll limit it anyways...great points there Mike. He also has his whole impeach the president thing going, especially in his new book, or at least that is what he said in his release statement. And, his speech given at both the IFC/Independent Spirit Awards as well as the Academy Awards (it was the exact same fucking speech) was just pure assholery, though funny as hell. The difference between Moore and Bunuel is that Bunuel was a bit more subtle, and never really contradictory. Moore takes things to the Nth degree, and eventually, with confidence, stumbles over himself. He goes too far in many of his ideas, isolating alot of would-be supporters. Also, he chooses to alter facts (which he admits to), and has an extremely slanted world view (which isn't bad). He never gives the full picture, or even a correct one, just his picture. However, he is an extreme liberal, and has a liberal tone.

Along the same lines is the ultra-liberal, Hunter S. Thompson. He writes exactly like an ultra-conservative, making him the essential link in the circle of liberal and conservatism which my teacher was trying to convince us of in high school. I didn't believe him then, and only until I was reading Thompson's essays sis I think he was correct. I am reading his book: Generation of Swine, Papers from the 80s vol. 2. Among the first of the articles is The Hellfire Club. All of the essays in the book are approximately 2.5 pages. This article is no exception. It is Thompson articulating his disbelief about Swaggert and Bakker getting busted. His disbelief is more that they didn't do anything wrong in what they were doing, rather than the actions themselves. He then goes on to list past orgyastic clubs with famous members, including The Hellfire Club, which had Ben Franklin and The Earl of Sandwich as members. The problem with this, as is so easily pointed out by everybody not Thompson, is that Swaggert and Bakker were both preaching against sex and extramarital affairs. What they did was wrong in their own preachings, not necessarily the worldview. But Thompson all but ignores this aspect in the paper delegating it to the opening paragraph as "Are these TV preachers all degenerates?" Then goes on to say that they weren't even really immoral, and the headlines have been fouled up, much like a controversy concerning Gary Hart. But, much of his writing reads like Ed Anger from Weekly World News, only with more pinache. I love reading his work, but it is very very conservative style with ultra-liberal meanings. This, I believe, delegated him to cult status instead of the true fame which he deserved.

The conservative tone of Hunter S. Thompson is much like the tone of everybody's favorite carnivore: Ted Nugent. One of my favorite guys in the world because he represents everything Michigan for me. Ted Nugent pisses off people because he is confrontational with all of his conservative views. I may or may not agree with everything he has to say, but he doesn't give a shit. He's a balls-to-the-wall type. This weekend, I saw Ted Nugent's "reality" tv show on VH1. It was called Surviving Ted and was a self-contained 2 hour game show-ish thing. He had a bunch of various types, mainly liberals, from a gay guy to a vegetarian, live with him, and he steadily eliminated them. The vegetarian got pissed off because Nugent hunts in the wild and eats his prey (which is really good, and the animals don't really suffer according to him). Nuge told Darren, the homosexual, "I don't really approve of your lifestyle." At one point he had them go out on a pontoon together to democratically decide who would be the next to get eliminated, which he vetoed anyways. This guy is such an asshole its great. This is a man whom I would love to get to know better. BUT, all of my previous mentions, on top of everything he said on his morning radio show when it existed (back when 102.7 was cool), and his concert antics all point to political assholery. He is, however, the most upfront person. He'll say that you can be right just fuck off.

So, where am I going with this? I dunno. I just felt like pointing out the weirdness that pervades media. Especially subculture media. Why do I read it? Mainly because, even if I don't agree with what they say, they all have a very good sense of humor. They know timing and such which will make me laugh. I may get pissed off by the end of what they are saying, but I am laughing as well.