Prosimian

Whatever happened to Christopher Boyce?

2006-02-24T15:40:00.000-06:00

Curious about what became of Christopher Boyce, the subject of the book and film The Falcon and the Snowman? This LA Times article will fill you in.

The Falcon and the Fallout

By Richard A. Serrano
Times Staff Writer

March 2, 2003

Finally released after spending half of his life in prison, and still he had to wait. So Christopher Boyce hung around the prison parking lot, rubbernecking, taking in the fresh air around Sheridan, Ore., unsure what to make of freedom. A half hour went by before the big Suburban at last came lumbering up the driveway, carrying his father, a former FBI agent, and his mother, once a Catholic nun.

They had wanted to throw a joyous family reunion right there in front of the gates of the federal penitentiary, to gather around with Chris and his eight younger siblings, perhaps their extended families too. But he said no; he just could not handle such raw emotion so soon. Instead, he quietly climbed into the back seat and they drove east out of the Coast Ranges, headed toward the airport in Portland. He was going to catch a plane to San Francisco, to a halfway house, where, after six months, he could make parole. On March 15, 2003, he finally would be free.

Boyce stared out the window of the Suburban. It was mid-September. The trees were still green, the birds aloft. His eyes bounced back and forth, amazed at all the splendor. "Somehow, I'm not quite sure how, but somehow the whole thing is over," he told himself. "I am absolutely . . . I don't know what to say . . . This huge weight on the top of my head . . . It is finally done."

But all is not peaceful in the world to which Christopher John Boyce has returned.

Nearly three decades ago, his father had helped him land a job at TRW Inc. in Redondo Beach. There he was given access to the "Black Vault" and its trove of communications with CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. He and a childhood friend, Andrew Daulton Lee, the two of them once altar boys together, began selling classified documents that Boyce smuggled home. Their buyer was the Russian Embassy in Mexico City.

What brought such a dangerous gambit? A 22-year-old's mix of liberal ideology and a desire for cash to buy drugs. Their scheme succeeded for little more than a year, until 1977. Boyce and Lee were arrested, tried and convicted of espionage in federal court in Los Angeles and sent away for long prison sentences.

The case fascinated the public, especially after it was laid out in a book and then a 1985 movie, "The Falcon and the Snowman," a title derived from Boyce's love of birds, especially falcons, and Lee's prior drug problems. The traitors acquired a certain dark celebrity, particularly Boyce, whose good looks and large-screen legacy brought mailbags full of fan letters. Yes, he had sold secrets that compromised U.S. satellites and damaged negotiations over nuclear missile treaties that had been the focus of this country's foreign policy. But as the years passed, the fallout from his crime seemed to fade. The Cold War ended. The nation endured worse sins at the hands of others--mass murders, the Oklahoma City bombers, traitors whose deeds led to bloodshed. No one died as a result of Boyce's actions. The United States won the Cold War. Boyce seemed destined to return to a country ready to forgive.

But that was before Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists demonstrated to new generations of Americans the need for an uncompromised national defense. The nation he rejoins today has a renewed distaste for spies. The timing could have been better.

Five months after moving to the halfway house, boyce is sitting in a San Francisco living room. In a few weeks, he'll win his final release. He has consented to an interview, reluctantly, after repeatedly turning down my overtures for even an introduction. He feared his comments would jeopardize his parole. He worried that his family would see this article and that it would break his father's aging heart all over again. He wanted to somehow slide back into the world and never be noticed again.

Yet here he sits, for his first in-depth interview since going to prison 25 years ago. We are in his wife's home. They are newlyweds, having met when she helped him fight for parole several years ago. He has a coveted 48-hour weekend pass from the halfway house he abhors in the Tenderloin District.

He has agreed to talk because he wants to make a point about the folly of Congress abolishing parole for any federal prisoners convicted after 1987. He believes he is proof that inmates can be rehabilitated and returned to society. He also realizes that The Times is going to write about his release even without an interview, and he doesn't want the article based exclusively on his grim past.

He seldom looks my way, or at his wife, Cait. Rather, he fixes on the sun-dappled window, his gray eyes seemingly locked far beyond the room. He speaks softly. His fingers often nervously cover his mouth, and his words are hard to pick up, often drowned out by the zebra finches in a cage near the dining room, or Elvis, the pet canary.

"On weekends I barbecue in the backyard," he says. "I lie in the hammock watching the clouds go by. I like taking the dogs for walks in the park. It sounds kind of boring, but for me it's like the ultimate freedom. You can just wander around a park with a couple of crazy dogs. Watch the surf. Watch the ravens out around the beach. You can walk right up to them.

"When I first got here, when I first got to the halfway house, I just wandered around San Francisco for about four or five days on the streetcars and on the trolley cars. Just looking.

"I went up the tops of the hills of San Francisco, and a flock of about a hundred parrots flew past. There's this one area where the parrots are like pigeons in San Francisco; they're conures. And I mean it was just amazing.

"I went down to the Embarcadero and over to Fisherman's Wharf and wandered through the streets, looking at all these old buildings that were built in 1869 or whatever, and checking out the architecture and going to art museums and the Mint and up and down Market, just looking at the people, and going into the old churches and cathedrals, and just absorbing the city."

He thought about what lies ahead for him, the euphoria of freedom, and then he says with this great big smile, "Parole is a great gas."

Boyce turned 50 last month, and his hair is graying on the sides. He moves with some caution, no longer the free spirit racing atop the Palos Verdes peninsula hills of his youth. Today there is little he would rather do than walk the beach with his wife's pair of bouvier des Flandres, pausing with the Belgian herding dogs to marvel at the freedom of birds in flight. She recently presented him with a new pair of binoculars, and often as not, he says, he spots a peregrine falcon.

As a boy, Boyce earned straight As in school, loved history and was elected student body president at the parish grade school, St. John Fisher. But at Palos Verdes High he began to doubt his Catholicism, and today he still wrestles with Christ's divinity. He joined many of his generation in questioning the Vietnam War, and unlike the typical teenager, he become enamored with the rare and centuries-old sport of falconry.

He refused to let anything tie him down. He drifted around to several colleges. He was uncertain about his future. His father, Charles Boyce, by then having left the FBI to work in the industrial security business, stepped in and tapped a friend at TRW. Soon Chris was working with a high-level security clearance position there.

"I was just in a very rebellious state," he recalls, reflecting on Vietnam and on CIA abuses that were very much in the news. "I was brought up by an FBI agent, and I was just very much in a state of rebellion. I looked at Western culture there in Los Angeles as just a big confusion of causes, a big smog-choking illness on the planet. The city was just choking with poison, and I just was in total disagreement with the whole direction of Western society."

How do you get from disaffected youth to seller of national secrets? I ask.

"It was just a matter of synchronicity," he says. "All these things fell into place at once. I mean, how many kids can get a summer job working in an encrypted communications vault?"

But, he stresses, "You can't really say it was a lark. It was much more than a lark. A lark is something that's not really dangerous to yourself, like we were daring each other. And once it began, you just realized that it was the biggest, dumbest decision in your life."

Once in the spy game with Lee, he realized they were courting doom. Lee warned him that this was "only going to end in a personal disaster."

Yet they ventured on, Boyce bringing more documents home and Lee making arrangements with their Soviet handlers. "Sometimes I think when you're young, you crave danger or are willing to put yourself in dangerous positions," Boyce says. "But I had never gotten into any trouble in my life that I couldn't get out of. My father was in a position that could keep me out of a whole lot of trouble."

They sold thousands of classified intelligence documents. One of them dealt with a super-sensitive satellite system called the Pyramider. They made about $77,000, a fortune for such young pirates. Their arrest, Boyce says, "was the storm cloud that broke on our heads."

He was a son of privilege, and he had shamed his parents. Even today he is unsure how deeply he hurt his father, and it pains him to talk about it. Many years after his arrest, while in a Minnesota prison, he tried to assuage some of that guilt. In a newspaper op-ed piece, he described camping trips as a youngster with his cigar-smoking father. "Why did I do it to him?" he wrote. "What was there in me that made me want to pull down his government and its Cold War? Espionage was a cruel wound to inflict on a father who loved me."

He said he came to realize that his father, not him, had been the true Cold Warrior, firmly convinced that American endurance would defeat the Soviets. His father was right.

But the son is still not so sure about his mother's deeply religious views. He cannot accept Jesus as Christ, he says, and that loss of faith may be his parents' greatest disappointment in him. "I believe in an unknowable causal agent that began everything," he says, trying to explain the universe. "There is an original cause for everything, but we don't know who or what that is. But that unknowable whatever is how I define God."

If any spiritual force watched over him during his years behind bars, it was his desire to get out, he says. He was just 24 when he was given a 40-year sentence, and was housed initially in the federal lockup in Los Angeles. Even at that early date, he had made up his mind.

"On the way in they somehow lost track of me," he says, laughing. "And so I wandered off into the general inmate population, down chow halls, down corridors, and I got in lines and just wandered around the jail looking for the door. It was a disgusting, pitiful existence these people were in. The sheriffs beating up people both left and right, smacking people around."

He remembers an inmate passing on a gurney, and then watching as guards "ran his head into the wall. Things like that. Just taking people aside and beating them up. It was just like hell. So I was just walking through this place and I resolved not to stay in prison. From then on, all I did was plan to escape."

His break came in January 1980 at the federal prison at Lompoc. There he had witnessed a fellow prisoner being stabbed to death by a gang armed with shanks. Boyce preferred being shot by a prison guard to taking a shiv in the back.

He was ready to go. His bag of tricks included a piece of wood, a pair of rose shears, a jar of Vaseline and a toothbrush affixed to a broom handle, for digging. He slipped down a drain grate in the prison yard, and he waited for his chance at night.

"I was in this hole in the ground, in a small sump with a grille over my head, and the guard walked right past. I was right under him and the flashlight passed over the grille. He was just whistling and he walked right over me."

He lifted the grate and sprinted across the yard to a 10-foot-high chain-link enclosure. Up and over, and he vanished.

"It was like doubly liberating," he says, not bragging, just telling it. "It almost made me feel like I was indestructible or something. That first or second night, it was kind of frosty and I woke up shivering, covered with frost, and I was sitting there thinking, 'Here is a total sense of freedom.' "

For 19 months he was free. He used fictitious names, steered clear of friendships, found work trolling on a salmon fishing boat. His life was one "of fear, pursuit and close calls."

He delighted in defying the government, daring the FBI and the U.S. Marshal's Service to find the man who topped the nation's Most Wanted Fugitive list. He needed money, and he found banks an easy mark. He hit a dozen of them throughout the Pacific Northwest, hoping to pay for passage to the Soviet Union. He would have friends there, he thought. He would be safe. But these would be mere flights of fancy.

In November 1981, federal agents found him in Port Angeles, Wash. He was parked in his black-and-gold Oldsmobile at a carhop diner, eating a hamburger with his nose lost in a book about flight. The agents forced him out of the car at gunpoint and spread him face down on the pavement. His arms were wrenched behind the small of his back, and he once again felt handcuffs.

"My life's done," Boyce told himself, lying there on the ground. "I'd rather be dead."

Back he went to prison, "dragged back into the squalor of a federal penitentiary and all the degradation . . . just a form of slavery to me," he says. "I'd rather have been shot in the head than taken back. I'd rather have my head cut off."

He was convicted of bank robbery, and this time given an aggregate sentence of 63 years. To do that much time would mean he would turn 90 in prison. The government was plenty mad.

Then began what boyce called "the long, cold winter of my life. In federal custody, nature seems reduced to cockroaches, ants and flies."

In the big house in Leavenworth, Kan., he was beaten by a prison Aryan Brotherhood gang angry that he had said espionage was "high adventure" and that he could live as a traitor. He was moved to what at that time was the Bureau of Prison's most secure fortress, the penitentiary at Marion, Ill., much of it underground. He was placed in solitary confinement, both for his own protection and because he was considered a flight risk. His cell was beneath the prison hospital, and there he stayed for more than six years.

He painted, mostly portraits, including one of his father fishing. He also read voraciously and collected books, hundreds of them, stacking them from cell floor to ceiling, many of them histories of the Elizabethan Age. Others were on the Civil War. Others were field guides to birds.

In these dark hours, he says, he turned inward. Sometimes he fantasized he was Sir Francis Drake, setting sail against the Spanish Armada. Sometimes he donned Confederate gray or Yankee blue, and clashed at the First Battle of Bull Run. In all of his imaginings, he spoke out loud, playing multiple roles in his head, savoring the sound of his own voice. For most of his years down there, he rarely heard other voices.

"Everyone [in solitary] would be doing it. Everyone would have scenarios going on in their heads. But, you know, you have to have some life, even if it's a complete fantasy."

Sometimes prison officials wandered down to his cell, ordering him out in shackles. " 'Tell us how you did it, how you broke out of Lompoc,' " they'd press him.

"We used to sit there and bait each other," Boyce remembers. Eventually he gave them their answer: "Your defenses were worthless."

He was at Marion when the movie came out. He is somewhat dismissive of it today, although he did think the moniker the Soviets used for him was catchy. "It's a snazzy title for a book and a movie. But I don't have any recollection of someone calling me that before. People called me that in prison. People call me that in the halfway house. And I always ask them, 'Please don't call me that. My name's Chris.' " The Falcon, he says, "that's somebody's invention."

It did bring a deluge of mail. Guards clambered down with large bags of it, often twice a day, dumping the letters through his food slot. It was mostly fan mail, much of it from young girls smitten by the movie image of the graceful falcon, now caged, alone.

In 1988, he was transferred to a state prison in Oak Park Heights, Minn., under a contract agreement with the federal government. There he had freedom, if only of movement. It was soft time; he was allowed to take college courses and earn a degree in history. He played handball and he painted, and he wrote pieces for a local newspaper, calling for prison reform, describing his love of falconry, apologizing to his father.

Then he went too far. He wrote how a convicted spree killer nicknamed "Berserker Bjork" was allowed to roam the prison, endangering other inmates. The prison system reacted. He was put back in federal confinement, this time in Supermax in Colorado. "They were mad at me because I was writing articles. They were mad at me for having once escaped from prison and embarrassing them. They were mad at me for having a parole date. They just really thought I shouldn't get any kind of breaks whatsoever. I mean, to them it was like I escaped yesterday. They just never got over it."

Prison officials claimed he was moved to Colorado for his own safety. Once again, he was placed in a one-man cell. He was caged for 23 hours a day and allowed into a small yard, alone, for one hour. Now his neighbors were Oklahoma City bombers Timothy J. McVeigh and Terry L. Nichols, and the Unabomber, Theodore J. Kaczynski.

Three and a half more years passed. "You couldn't come out of your cell unless there were two guards with clubs, one to hold the chains behind your back. You couldn't come out of there unless you backed up to the door and they cuffed you up."

He pauses. He turns his eyes away from the living room window. "That place was despicable," he snarls.

Boyce found McVeigh, awaiting his June 2001 execution, amusing. "I said, 'Why don't you kill yourself?' He said no. He wanted to let the whole thing go through. But what he really wanted was to be a martyr."

Nichols, he says, would pace around the tiny recreation yard, which Boyce could see from his window. "He just walked and walked like a windup toy. Jerky." The gnarly haired Kaczynski? "He was a lunatic. He wasn't very clean. They scrubbed him up a little bit, but not enough." Boyce laughs. "He needed a comb."

Here too was Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, convicted in the first New York City World Trade Center explosion. He never talked, Boyce says.

To finish out the last of his prison time, Boyce was transferred to the penitentiary in Oregon. In all those years--from his trial in Los Angeles, his escape and his recapture--he was rarely heard from. But in 1985, the year "The Falcon and the Snowman" premiered, he was called to Washington, D.C., to testify before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that was investigating ways to discourage future Christopher Boyces from espionage.

"It's pretty dirty business," he told the committee. "People just don't understand what it is; they just don't know what a person goes through day to day in that sort of thing. It is not what you see on television." He said he would warn others that "they are going to regret it," that they would be "bringing down upon themselves heartache more heavy than a mountain." He added, "There is no exit from it."

At the time, long before terrorism had come to U.S. shores and as the Cold War neared its end, Boyce's cooperation brought a measure of sympathy. The committee's chairman, then-Sen. William Cohen (R-Maine), called Boyce's testimony "one of the most powerful and . . . poignant statements to have ever been made in . . . any committee in the United States Senate or Congress."

Then-Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), the ranking minority member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, was so impressed that he began to lobby the Bureau of Prisons on Boyce's behalf. "There is no question as to the very serious nature of Mr. Boyce's original offense," Nunn wrote to the prisons bureau. "His crime seriously damaged our national security." But he also said he hoped Boyce's testimony and cooperation with the subcommittee "will help to repair some of the damage of the past."

Others were nonplused. Then-Sen. Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) criticized Boyce and Lee for compromising U.S. satellite systems. The spying made the systems "temporarily, at least, useless to us. Because the Soviets could block them. And the fear that that had happened permeated the Senate and, as much as any one thing, was responsible for the failure of the SALT treaty," which was intended to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. "If you think as I do that the breakdown of our arms negotiations with the Soviets is an ominous event, then nothing quite so awful has happened to our country as the escapade of these two young men."

Today, Boyce certainly feels remorse for his crimes, although the bank robberies trouble him the most. "It if were Judgment Day, I would confess the banks first," he says.

Why? Because you could have hurt someone?

"Yes," he says. "And because I didn't have to do that."

In 1997, with 50 years remaining on his sentence, Boyce appeared before the U.S. Parole Commission. He pleaded for an early release date and broke down crying under the weight of the time he'd lost. His case manager, George Hart, urged the commission to consider leniency. "I have not seen many inmates with less need for continued incarceration," he told the panel. "He basically does not fit in a prison environment, and I don't see much value in his continued incarceration I don't think there is much more to drive out of Christopher Boyce."

Kenneth Walker, a parole examiner watching the proceedings, said, "Mr. Boyce seems to be a mature individual and one who is truly sorry for his past crimes."

But Ray Essex, another examiner, warned that the United States should not forget the gravity of Boyce's sins. He told the commission in a written report: "Subject was the leader in the espionage crime as he used his top secret clearance to steal/photograph documents which were given to Russia . . . [Any earlier release] is in my opinion too lenient in consideration of the overall offense behavior of subject."

He added, "The argument that Russia is no longer a threat with the Cold War having ended does not warrant an earlier release date now, as this would depreciate the seriousness of the offense when it did occur."

Nevertheless, parole was granted: March 15, 2003.

Today, with that date approaching, Boyce already is losing his cellblock pallor. Color has returned to his cheeks. He has no prison tattoos. He also has learned that there can be a price for freedom.

"I'm gaining weight from all this," he laments.

How much?

"Six or seven pounds."

His wife cackles. "Oh, God, you are so full of doo-doo!" she says.

"Well, at least six or seven pounds," he offers.

"No, just over 15 pounds," she insists.

"I don't think so."

"Excuse me," she laughs. "I'm looking at it, pal!"

Cait had picked him up at the airport in San Francisco on that first day out of prison. She had sent him a new pair of jeans and a fresh shirt and brought along a picnic lunch. "He was quiet," she says. "The lone figure walking up the ramp." They spotted one another, and "then he had this huge smile."

She is tall, red-haired and full of energy. A surfer, a French cook and a cancer survivor, she prides herself on her advocacy work helping federal inmates make parole. That is how she came across Chris some years back, after working on his partner Lee's release in 1998. Boyce and Lee are lucky. They were convicted before Congress eliminated parole from the federal system. Today, only 2,100 federal inmates are eligible for parole in a system that houses 165,000. It is a cruel mistake, Boyce believes, to deny a chance for early release to prisoners who truly rehabilitate themselves.

Chris and Cait, 48, married in the fall, turning the ceremony in a stand of redwoods into the long-planned Boyce family reunion as well. Thanksgiving was his first holiday back at home. "He wanted everything," Cait says. "Chocolate cheesecake. Mincemeat pie. Lemon meringue pie."

Their marriage is one of weekends grabbed at the moment, when he gets a Friday-to-Sunday pass from the halfway house. Accustomed to life in a spare cell, he seems a bit phobic about a house that is fully furnished. Slowly he is navigating his way through a world he could never have envisioned in solitary, filled with mobile phones and ATMs and cars with window wipers that have multiple settings. He has begun to run his fingers over a computer keyboard, learning how to Google.

We take a break from the interview for lunch in the dining room: Waldorf sandwiches with lemon-and-brandy cake. The zebra finches and Elvis the canary carry on nearby. When we're finished, Boyce sets his fork down and turns to his wife. "It would be 10 times more difficult if I didn't have Cait."

Lee also is in California these days, but the two boyhood chums have had a falling out and aren't talking about it. Besides, federal law prohibits ex-cons from associating with one another.

Halfway house rules dictate that Boyce keep a job. So for a while he worked north of town for a contractor friend of Cait's, helping to build sinks. Then he found work at a local pet shop, more to his liking perhaps. Twenty-five percent of his gross pay goes to the halfway house. Indeed, the halfway house is always over his shoulder; it even calls on weekends to make sure he is home.

There are other nags too, but they just go with being Christopher Boyce--especially in post-9/11 America. Already there have been calls and letters from fans and reporters seeking access, and from detractors too. "Flakes who think they can get pictures or a book or an autograph," Cait complains. "Women who send letters and toothbrushes to the halfway house, and the guy who wanted one of Chris' T-shirts, unwashed! Then there's the guy in Los Angeles who contacted my brother-in-law to reach Chris to tell him about his anti-government positions. The list is endless, and neither of us wants to have to deal with these people. Honestly, it is somewhat scary."

Boyce has always attracted fans in odd places. When he was writing the 15 op-ed pieces, his editor at the Minneapolis Star Tribune became so fond of him that he brought his children along on prison visits. Eric Ringham wanted Boyce to know that he hoped his kids would learn that every man has a soul. "Prison inmates are people like everybody else," he says he told Boyce. "Everybody makes mistakes, even though some mistakes are worse than others."

Boyce laughed, Ringham recalls. "No," he told his editor friend. "There are some really bad people in here."

Boyce is no longer among them. The future is instead his to make, as the old saying goes, even if he is getting underway long after the rest of us. "I'm starting at 50," he jokes. Yet he seems in no great hurry. Some weekend afternoons he lingers on the backyard hammock or walks the coastline, his eyes piercing the sea fog, his ears alert to the whoosh of wings.

He dreams of a trip to Mexico someday, maybe Christmas in Paris. He is not sure about pursuing a career, but he thinks he might like to write an autobiography, to put down what he calls his "privileged yet peculiar childhood" and the "many bloody horrors of prison." He would argue for the reinstitution of federal parole, and he would end his journey with hope.

For a lifetime in prison has taught him that even when the world changes around you, there are some things in a man that no four walls can take away. "Do you like bird-watching?" he asks me. "It's a gas."

Richard A. Serrano is a Times staff writer. He last wrote for the magazine about U.S. government mistreatment of mothers of black servicemen killed in World War I.

RELATED: Boyce's mugshot, a transcript of his Australian 60 Minutes interview, a U.S. Department of Justice bio.

Primer on Canadian Gangs

2006-02-19T20:05:00.000-06:00

Looking for info on Canadian Aboriginal gangs? Here you go:

Winnipeg gang program stalled while awaiting federal funding

By Michelle Macafee

The Canadian Press

WINNIPEG - Garrette Courchene is a man of confidence, laughter and quiet authority as he leads a dozen young men in a drumming session on a warm summer evening at a downtown aboriginal community centre. It's just one of many signs the 37-year-old father of three has also found peace and purpose after years spent in jail, dealing drugs and rising in the ranks of Winnipeg street gangs.

Now, 15 months after leaving prison for what he insists is the last time, Courchene is helping other aboriginal men leave gang life behind. "Being in a gang you hurt people and you don't realize how many people you hurt," says Courchene, his large arms and chest covered in tattoos that include the words Manitoba Warriors, a wolf's face and a flower. "But people now look at me with respect because of me. Before they were respecting me because they were scared of me. There's a big difference there and you can feel it."

Drumming is just one part of Paapiiwak, a pilot program that draws on traditional activities such as healing circles, medicine picking and sweat lodges to steer former and current gang members clear of crime, drugs and alcohol. The program also includes Cocaine Anonymous, helps former gang members remove their gang tattoos, and has plans for two rehabilitation houses.

Paapiiwak's client list has grown to more than 200 since it started last summer and the phone continues to "ring off the hook," says case worker Richard Paul. But the program has stalled since federal funding ran out in March. Paul and others continue to work without pay while an application for an additional $400,000 winds its way through government. The extra funding, if approved under the National Homelessness Initiative, will pay for renovations for the housing project and for staff to work with the first 12 residents.

"A lot of guys come around and they're sad the program's not in full operation," said Paul, who started brainstorming the project with members of rival gangs while they were in prison years ago. Claudette Bradshaw, the minister responsible for homelessness, could not be reached for comment. A spokesman said the second phase of the project has been approved but must still be given the green light by the government's regional office before it is presented to the minister.

"A decision will be made in due course," said Denis D'Amour. A report released last summer by the Criminal Intelligence Service Canada said aboriginal gangs are a growing problem across the Prairies. While they are mostly involved in street-level drug trafficking, the gangs are branching into prostitution, property crime, tobacco smuggling, weapons offences, illegal gambling as well as debt collection and enforcement for other organized crime groups, such as the Hells Angels.

Last year, a committee set up to study Edmonton's gang problem warned that unless action was taken, the problem would worsen because the aboriginal population was growing rapidly and youth intervention programs were almost non-existent.

Rob Papin, an ex-gang member from Edmonton now working on a documentary about the perils of gang life, says he has tried to get funding for a program in Edmonton similar to Paapiiwak. But he says he is frustrated by political obstacles, often from within the aboriginal community.

"I've been to about eight forums over the last years about being more proactive and getting a program started," said Papin, who was recently featured in Time magazine for his work, often unpaid, traveling Alberta speaking to young aboriginals.

"For the majority it's just a photo-op. Nobody's walking their talk." As for Courchene, he doesn't plan on following in the footsteps of many ex-gang members by having his Manitoba Warrior tattoo removed. Instead, he wants to add one powerful message: "I'm going to put ' '98' under it - the year I decided to get out."

Impression of a typical U.S. blog (as haiku)

2004-08-26T20:24:00.000-05:00

Bush Kerry Bush Bush
Kerry Kerry Kerry Bush
Kerry Bush Bush Bush

I’m Possessed

2004-08-17T17:08:00.003-05:00

Exorcist: The Beginning opens Friday after a reportedly troubled production and two years of negative reviews from movie gossip sites. Feel free to laugh, but I'll admit to looking forward to the film when it was announced. The Alienist author Caleb Carr and Terminator writer Bill Wisher worked on the script and the story, in which a young Father Merrin performs his first exorcism in Kenya, sounded intriguing.

If only. Judging from scathing advance reports, the exotic locale is due to cheap foreign production costs more than anything else. In pure B-list fashion, the cast is littered with swarthy Greco-Roman unknowns and led by once-dignified Euro-thespian Stellan Skarsgard. Another bad sign: Original director Paul Schraeder, writer of Taxi Driver, was fired and replaced by defrocked wonderboy Rennie Harlin. Can we expect a soundtrack of children's choirs and minor-key cello dirges whenever the blood spills? Probably.

The signs of a bad movie don't excuse all the "purists" online who are whining about the franchising of the mighty Exorcist, though. These fanboys should realize that a lasting emotional attachment to the "integrity" of a film, television series, or even a band represents a pitiable disconnect from reality, a sad misapplication of priorities. If the cast of a simple movie troubles your thoughts, how to handle a genuine crisis? Granted, a lot of these fans are adolescents, but just as many are not.

I personally don't mind sequels, although in the horror genre, they can be a mixed bag. The cottage industry of sequels that sprang up in the 80s and 90s around modest hits like The Howling, Relentless, and Silent Night, Deadly Night was absurd, both for the unwarranted number of films and their tenuous relation to the originals. In other cases, horror sequels have improved on, matched, or at least complimented their predecessors. Halloween II is equally good as the first, and the best of the Friday the 13th series is probably its fourth, which features Crispin Glover and a warped subplot that finds Corey Feldman shaving his head (don't ask).

As for The Exorcist, sequels to date have both disappointed and held their ground. The Exorcist II (1977) was a monumental bomb while The Exorcist III (1990) earned a few bucks and a cult following. Starring a curmudgeonly George C. Scott, the film is built on setting, pace, and sound rather than gore and wisecracks, creating a sense of menace reminiscent of decent 70s studio horror. Cheesy genre conventions do mar the picture, however. The ending is ridiculous, the dialogue is spotty, and Fabio has a bit part as an angel (again, don't ask). Last-minute edits also give it a non-linear feel and the plotholes will annoy picky viewers.

Making up for those flaws are its pungent atmosphere and a handful of standout scenes, among them the one in which an old lady crawls up a wall and gnashes her teeth at a befuddled Scott. Buy the DVD for ten bucks for a rainy day and follow it up with The Omen.

RELATED: The Catholic Church realy does perform the rare exorcism. Meanwhile, Evangelical nutjob types in the South perform them at an alarmingly high rate, often to treat addiction and other problems a good therapist could clear up. New York sociologist Michael Cuneo's absorbing study American Exorcism details the bizarre subculture nicely.

It's time for Jerzy's comeback

2004-08-13T16:09:00.000-05:00

Just the other day I carped about the limitations of weblogs and praised the art of fiction. Like an ass, I never bothered to recommend any novelists. So who have I been reading lately? Wouldn’t you know it, but a novelist who much like a blogger was criticized for his laziness and a lack of professionalism: Jerzy Kosinski.

Jerzy Kosinski (1933-1991) was born into a Jewish family in Lodz, Poland, on June 14, 1933. During the Holocaust he lived safely under a false identity with a family of Catholic Poles. After the war he was reunited with his parents and went on to earn advanced degrees in subjects including history and political science. In 1957, he moved to the United States, continuing his studies at Columbia University and, after completing a series of textbooks, embarking on a fiction-writing career.

If one were to judge Kosinski based on reviews and photographs of his severe, black-eyed stare alone, the man would appear to embody the complex and embattled “Serious Writer” archetype of the late 1960s. Dig deeper and it turns out Kosinski was a fraud who ripped off obscure European authors and hired an editorial staff to punch up his drafts. He lied about his background, too. This may understandably detract from your enjoyment of his work, but it doesn’t bother me at all. I side with anyone who takes shortcuts. I write a blog, for Christ’s sake.

Kosinski’s specialty was the arbitrary lines between civility and brutality and our willingness to cross them, often with little prodding. For all you cavemen out there, Jerzy’s forte was writing in a casual, smooth, and almost approving tone about nationalistic fury and the gratuitous violence it entails (e.g. eyes gouged out with spoons, heads bashed in with bottles, corpses dumped in pools of fecal matter). Fans of Tarantino, anti-social anime, and the more aggressive video games would approve.

Sound a little too nihilistic, a little too junior high? It sure is. Just as denying the inner savage is to scale the heights of Reagan-esque optimism, dwelling on it is overly dramatic and the domain of those angling to convey a sense of gravity with their every word. Still, certain realities demand to be explored and, owing to their intangibility, are best done so with art rather than the more objective (a.k.a. dull) observations of the social sciences. A disgruntled sociologist, Jerzy Kosinsky made that his literary mission and in his best work succeeded. That is, he and his co-authors succeeded.

Fittingly, the ugliness of Kosinski’s subject matter was rivaled almost note for note by the particulars of his life. Shortly after publication of his first novel, he lost his American wife to cancer. During this time he also claimed to suffer harassment from sympathizers and supposed agents of the Eastern Bloc governments he publicly criticized. His personal life was further complicated by his rumored perversity, such as his fetish for prostitutes and group sex and a lecherous affair with a terminally ill poetess half his age. Even his death is shrouded in mystery and depravity - was it hanging? Autoerotic asphyxiation? Different perspectives abound on Kosinski’s life and death but the only one his critics and supporters agree on is that the man was complicated.

Kosinski's major novels include Being There, remembered today as the source of a great Peter Sellers film, and The Painted Bird, at one time considered a moving autobiography of Holocaust survival but since found to be fabricated, a fact that turned him into a pariah among survivors and reportedly influenced his suicide (assuming it was suicide). I recommend Being There and Steps, his National Book Award winner and the novel in which his vision is clearest. His other books are not worth your time.

Now that I’m finished plugging the books, it’s important to mention that Kosinski had a wonderful, warped sense of humor. He was a cool guy, if you like quasi-sociopaths and confrontational performers in the Andy Kaufman vein. Read this excerpt about Kosinski's teaching career at Yale. From Jerzy Kosinski: A Biography, by James Sloan.

Kosinski looked at [his student] severely. “You know, the very first time I saw you I got the feeling you were going to die young,” Kosinski said. “In the past twenty years I've had the same feeling about several people and each time I've had it, they died. Of course, I could be wrong this time.”

The young man, who was afraid of being drafted and sent to Vietnam, started to cry.

Fun with Craigslist

2004-08-03T15:00:00.001-05:00

This morning Haiku Circus cartoonist Ken Sakamoto and I cooked up a bogus Help Wanted ad for Craigslist. The original ad and a sample of actual replies, with spelling and grammar intact, are below.

Discreet help for one afternoon: $1,000 CASH
Seeking retarded gentleman (18-35) to pretend he's my brother for an afternoon social event. He'll get a free lunch, you'll get $1,000. No questions asked.

REPLY #1:
I'm not retarded, but I'm a damn good professional actor. And I've played retarded characters in shows, to rave reviews. Interested?
Anonymous

REPLY #2:
I'm wise enough to know you truely do mean no questions asked, and good enough to pull off an acting job you'd be proud of, subtle and Edward Norton-like would be the general feel I'm thinking of now; and I just saw the ad. Give me 3 hours mental prep; or your input; we're golden. Let's do it; Date/TimePlace; the basics, anything else you feel pertinate; the rest; we'll wing it. I'm a 34 yr old white male who's asked for his ID everytime I ever buy alcohol; so , could be 21-35 depending upon how one see's the world. My pal's would say I already act retarded, why not get paid well for it. You must admit the $1000 part is a bit questionable, aka, your legitimacy..but hey, you me both; lets' just do this/have some fun with it (the fun all internal as you seem to be asking for a legitimate inoculous "hustle" to be performed); but, the $1,000 will buy off my conscious if there's other factors involved; aka - if someone will actually grill me to see if you hired an actor. We're not going for Rain Man here; this seems a cinch.
Will

REPLY #3:
hey thereI would love to help.just one question tho, how do u want ur brother look like? white,hispanic, indian,......let me know.
Mike M.

REPLY #4:
Hi my brother is mentally retarded. He could easily pose as your brother for a day. He is shy around other people so he wont talk alot- let me know if you are interested. 847-304-9***
Megan

REPLY #5:
Hello, I saw your posting on Craigslist. I'm not retarted, but for $1000 and a lunch, I'll drool, groan, limp, hump people, and basically spaz out as you specify. I am in Chicago, I'm 28, college educated, and I really have nothing better to do.
Rich

REPLY #6:
Hello. I live in the northern suburbs of Chicago (but I'm willing to drive) and I am 20 years old. I am willing to do this. What day would this be taking place? What type of retarded person are you looking for? I wouldn't consider myself severely retarded but I may be able to help.
Jonathan K.

You don't need a weatherman

2004-07-22T14:23:00.000-05:00

Last year a documentary about 60's radicals The Weather Underground (a.k.a. Weathermen) won an Oscar nomination and plenty of acclaim on the festival circuit. The film earned extra attention in Chicago, as the group staged its notorious "Days of Rage" protest here in 1969 (also, ex-members Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers are residents). Lost amid the deserved praise for the talented filmmakers, however, was the hugely unappealing behavior of the Weather Underground itself. If you're rusty on your counterculture history, the group carried out a series of bombings and riots from 1969 to 1975 in an effort to overthrow the U.S. government. While their Timothy Leary jailbreak and opposition to Vietnam are understandable, the consensus nowadays is that the WU pulled some needlessly drastic shit and, being suburbanites at heart, asked their parents to bail them out. Wipe away the revolutionary dress and talk and they were the Middle Class equivalent of those White Trash couples who rob banks to emulate Natural Born Killers. I personally find the WU obnoxious; that doesn't minimize the impact of the documentary, however, which is now available on DVD.

RELATED: Peruse actual FBI documents about the Weather Underground (with typical fed censoring) here.

Pravda mum on Lenin STD, gabby on greater impact

2004-07-21T15:32:00.000-05:00

It looks like my friends over at Russian news portal Pravda have yet to comment on the report by Israeli doctors that Lenin possibly died of a raging case of syphilis. In fact, the most recent article about Lenin in the Pravda archive discusses his legacy rather than his sexual hygiene. Either the Russians truly are in the midst of a severe press clampdown or they’ve decided to leave the crass exhumations of historical figures to us. Or, of course, the silence is due to old KGB-instilled fears of lurking Zionism (an anti-Semitic editor won’t put much stock in a report from Jewish doctors). Whatever the case, here’s their latest on Lenin’s reputation:

Most Russians Like Lenin
April 22 2004

Translated by Andrey Nesterov
Imperialist edits by R.W.

On the eve of the Lenin’s 134th birthday anniversary, more than half of Russians describe his role in history as positive yet support removing his body form the Mausoleum and burying it in a cemetery, according to a Public Opinion Foundation survey.

While the percentage of those describing Lenin’s role as positive has declined in recent years (from 65 percent in 1999 to 53 percent in 2003), the number of Lenin’s supporters is still greater than the number of his detractors. At the same time, the number of those having no opinion about Lenin is increasing, from 13 percent to 30 percent. These are mainly young people.

Respondents named the following good points about Lenin: people enjoyed "free social benefits" (28 percent of the surveyed), "the authority was given to people, the land to peasants, and factories to workers" (22 percent), and "life was better at that time than today" (8 percent).

In turn, opponents accused Lenin of initiating "Red Terror" and repressions", "Civil War" and "Execution of the Czar’s family" (11 percent), and also "breaking the natural course of history" and "wiping out the intelligentsia, the rich and peasants" (6 percent).

The number of proponents of reburying Lenin outside the Mausoleum is increasing. Ten years ago, 45 percent of Russians supported this idea. Today that figure is 56 percent. Less than 30 percent denounce reburial.

1,500 Russians were polled April 10-11 in 100 settlements of 40 Russian regions.

Charles Jenkins: Deserter or Deserted?

2004-07-19T15:05:00.000-05:00

For the last few weeks, I’ve been reading with interest the strange case of Charles Robert Jenkins, a U.S. Army sergeant accused of defecting to North Korea in 1965 and joining the anti-American propaganda machine. Jenkins recently resurfaced in Indonesia and then Japan, where he is seeking advanced medical treatment and reconnecting with his wife, a Japanese national who returned to her homeland two years ago.

While the Army insists Jenkins deserted his post and currently seeks to prosecute him, his family in the U.S. has maintained for almost 40 years that he was kidnapped and brainwashed by North Korean forces. Judging by the information available, as well as historical factors, the Jenkins family has the superior argument.

North Korea has long been an impoverished and closed society, and as such an unlikely destination for a Cold War spy or defector. The great paradox of the Cold War spy is that, despite claims of ideological solidarity with the Worker-Peasant Revolution, very few ever tried to flee the living standards of the West. Fewer still aligned themselves with poorer Communist regimes, instead seeking the subsidies and creature comforts associated with covert service in the KGB.

Additionally, American traitors during the Cold War were largely military clerical and technical employees or subcontractors whose proximity to strategic and technological intelligence made them more useful to adversaries than active-duty personnel such as Jenkins, whose frontline status distanced him from information on nuclear policy.

North Korea also has a history of abducting foreign nationals and forcing them into intelligence service, often as language instructors or experts in their home cultures, two posts that Jenkins reportedly held. Jenkins’s own wife is a Japanese citizen kidnapped by North Korea and forced into teaching language to Korean spies. An article last week in the Los Angeles Times offers further support to the abduction theory:

[The Jenkins family] knew how devoted Robert was to the Army. Particularly fishy…were the farewell letters government officials passed on to the family by telegram. They were signed "Charles," when everyone knew Jenkins went by "Super" or "Robert." One was addressed "Dear Mother," when everyone knew Jenkins called her "Mama." Copies of the letters were never given to the family.

Jenkins is likely a victim of brainwashing, a real-life Manchurian Candidate facing excessive and undue punishment from a Bush administration desperate to direct attention away from Iraq. What such a strategy actually demonstrates is the administration’s continuing tendency to overreact to long-dormant or limited security threats.

RELATED: A website by the Jenkins family. ALSO: A genuine Cold War defector was the late Edward Lee Howard, whose fascinating story was detailed in the 1988 book The Spy Who Got Away, now out of print but in plentiful supply via used bookstores and websites. I bought my copy through an Amazon vendor and recommend that route. If you’re more interested in reading a brief synopsis of Howard’s life and mysterious death, the Washington Post provides one here. R.W.

Woodward I am not

2004-06-16T13:50:00.000-05:00

Today a grassroots organization called Population Connection, formerly Zero Population Growth, ranked Cleveland the worst city in America for children. I grew up in Cleveland and have friends and family who are raising kids there and find nothing amiss in the perpetually derided "Mistake on the Lake." Naturally, I took offense at the report and in true muckraking style began a harried search for evidence that Population Connection is a sleazy front group for the energy lobby. Bad news for my languid journalism career--it's not. Visit the group's site here.

On layoffs and "The Cliff Walk"

2004-06-16T13:12:00.000-05:00

Last spring I was laid off from my job as a newscast logger. It was a low-paying survival gig so the ramifications for my résumé and financial situation were small. Once I began collecting my unemployment checks, I hardly felt the pinch. The slide into what could be termed depression, however, could not be so easily dismissed, and looking back, it shames me I never took advantage of my few workable skills. I chalk it up to the drift one feels when out of work, that sense of invisibility that comes from taking your tenth walk around the neighborhood in as many days. As the rest of the world worked, I paced the same cracked sidewalks and rifled through the same musty Time-Life books at the under-funded corner library. The tedium can bring a guy down, and it's a rare situation that cheers you up and reorients your disposition, however briefly.

One afternoon, I had such an experience when I came across a copy of Don J. Snyder's The Cliff Walk. I'd like to say my discovery was serendipitous, but that would be less informative than the actual reason. The book is in my opinion a classic American piece of writing and its broad appeal is what keeps it frequently circulating in Chicago’s library system. Published in 1998, The Cliff Walk is former English professor Snyder’s memoir of his ignoble firing from prep college Colgate, his painful slide into depression and later, his humiliating and sometimes dangerous acts of desperation, all of which stem from his refusal to move on and find an ordinary job. For example, as Snyder's pregnant wife places ads for tenants in their home, Snyder trolls the same classifieds for barren couples to sell their unborn child (without his wife's knowledge, of course). Make no mistake. Snyder is not a likeable narrator for much of this book. His laziness and self-pity are so disturbing that if not for his candor, this book would be unbearable. Sensible readers would want to track the author down and slap him around.

Fortunately, The Cliff Walk is the rare memoir that charts character growth without making pleas for sympathy or employing campy, last-minute epiphanies. Instead of placing blame, Snyder begins to grasp that there are thousands of other people out of work with comparable credentials. He realizes that even overpriced, posh colleges have to cut corners. And he accepts that professional politics often play a part in deciding who gets the axe, and that his casual violation of inane yet well-known faculty taboos probably sealed his fate. As for his professional accomplishments, Snyder admits up front that he had a bloated sense of entitlement. Cementing his ouster from academia, he confesses that the exalted "Publish or Perish" credo is a crock, at least at prep schools, as he and his colleagues spent a handful of hours writing and researching each week yet routinely exaggerated that amount.

Solid technique also sets The Cliff Walk apart from other mid-life memoirs. An investigative reporter prior to his university days, Snyder values relevant detail and pacing over gooey prose; he’s not trying to sell you on his talents but make a point. In discussing his faults, Snyder avoids a simple then-versus-now mechanism, or the memoir writer's cliché of flagellating the "Old Me" in a backhanded effort to prop up the glossy new self. Such a mechanism reeks of crusty resurrection themes and does not indicate an accrual of wisdom, but a dim awareness that loss may precede genuine growth. The Cliff Walk is not a quest or a revocation of a previous life, but the story of a complacent man who finds strength and motivation. This simplicity is what makes the book inspiring and anyone who is unemployed should consider reading it. It will make you feel better about yourself, and not merely because Snyder provides copious examples of his deranged behavior. It succeeds because Snyder learns he is not special and that survival transcends puffed-up professional dignity.

Strange Magic

2004-06-08T18:24:00.000-05:00

On Sunday night I took in a performance of “Chris Carter Keeps Messing With Your Mind,” a magic show at the Royal George Theatre here in Chicago. Being cynical by nature, I half expected to sit down and pound out a vindictive repudiation of the amiable Carter’s 90-minute presentation. Where to begin? I could start by saying that Carter is a longtime hit with Chicago Reader theatre critics and college audiences, two groups not known for good taste. I could point out that Carter’s tricks are at least 150 years old and are known by any self-respecting Gypsy. I could talk about how the show’s structure encouraged belief in Carter’s abilities, notably how he opened with rapid-fire cold readings to amaze agreeable audience members and ended with a signature routine meant to convert the cynics, who at Sunday’s show included a silver-haired Gary Sinise look-alike and a dour, bearded 50-something in cargo pants and oversized polo shirt.

But I won’t do that. First of all, it would cement my similarities to a guy who looks like Gary Sinise and a Baby Boomer who dresses like a college freshman stuck between phases. Second, it was my birthday weekend and I turned off the inner cynic so I could have a good time. Last, I’ve been a fan of magic for the better part of 25 years and a more focused aficionado for the last ten. I began casually studying stage magic in 1997 and have regrettably witnessed few live acts since. This made the chance to see a working professional exciting. It also offered me a chance to see a performer of higher caliber than to what I’m accustomed. As it stands, the easiest place to see a magician at work outside of a casino town is daytime TV. The only thing is, most of these magicians don’t confess to doing magic at all, and instead proclaim to be New Age gurus. Figures who come to mind are Sylvia Brown, James Van Praagh, Uri Geller, and John Edward, all who claim otherworldly powers but actually recycle old mentalist routines, and in some cases, poorly. John Edward, for example, is so mediocre at cold reading I believe the hatred he engenders from skeptic-magicians like James Randi is simple jealousy rather than concern for the state of scientific inquiry. Geller, actually one of the most gifted conjurers in the last 50 years, has consistently derailed his career by proclaiming his act evidence of superhuman power. The Israeli performer seems to spend so much time suing his detractors and starring on British reality TV that he rarely modifies his act.

Fortunately, Sunday saw no cheap shenanigans like spoon bending or spirit channeling. Carter is a no-frills magician who aims to entertain rather than build a New Age empire of touchy-feely books and talk shows. In terms of technique, his sleight of hand is blindingly fluid and his card trickery demonstrates a lifetime of practice. As for stage presence, his demeanor is self-deprecating and enthusiastic. It’s a good combination that puts an audience at ease. Between tricks, Carter sustains interest through brief monologues that recognize predecessors such as Claude Conlin, a.k.a. Alexander the Crystal Seer. Unlike many of his peers, Carter avoids creepy flirting with women in the crowd and uses hypnosis to amuse rather than humiliate onstage volunteers. His show-capper, in which he rattles off personal details about the audience such as birthdays, nicknames, and addresses while blindfolded with silver dollars duct taped over his eyes, drew the greatest response. Those responses ranged from nervous laughter, startled gasps and, from me at least, a knowing and appreciative nod. This guy is exceptionally good. And the fact that he claims no paranormal ability makes him all the more impressive, underscoring the hard work that goes into an old school magic show (unlike the current crop of bozos who saw slumming Playmates in half on cruise ships).

I’ve been trolling Internet magic sites looking for instructions on how to perform Carter’s finale. My findings have been slim so far, and even if I found details, I’d never post them. That's not because I’m a defender of magic as an art form. Much of what passes for magic these days is more inspired by KISS pyrotechnics than greasy sideshow con games. Yet I feel it would be wrong to disseminate Carter’s routines, were I to find them. Wrong and futile. Like Houdini, Carter’s work can certainly be broken down into steps and replicated. To what extent is in doubt, of course, because the real magic lies not in the steps alone but the years of practice and refinement that devotees like Carter give their craft.

Gettin' Cultured

2004-05-27T19:53:00.000-05:00

Journal entry, ca. sept. 2002

This really happened the other night. My pal “Earl” called another friend (who shall remain anonymous) and had the following conversation.

Earl: “Hey, what’s going on, you called?”
Mr. X: “Not much. Just talking with my girlfriend.”
Earl: “Great. So what else is happening?”
Mr. X: “Uh, you know, we’re just hanging out. And talking.”
Earl: “Okay…”
PAUSE
Earl: “Well, I’m just calling you back, did you need something?”
PAUSE
Earl (getting the hint): “So what are you and your girlfriend talking about?”
Mr. X: “Art.”

Mr. X offered Earl no elaboration on his reply and moved right to the next subject. Can you believe that? To announce that you talk about art and leave your pal hanging, as if he’s an ignorant ass unqualified to grasp your lofty ideas? Sure, sure, art is beautiful and soothing and don’t we all just love it, but to talk about talking about it, as if that makes you high class—what a dick! Here’s the expected irony. Earl teaches a drawing class, did a little exhibit at a small gallery, and had a piece in an alternative weekly. All of which makes him…an artist. Guess who never shoots his mouth off about the study, practice, and appreciation of art? That’s right, Earl. Modest and talented guy, and focused, unlike Mr. X, who certainly whines like an artist and talks about his plans, but has produced nothing more than the contents of his toilet in the last 10 years. Don’t get me wrong, I’m cool with the art, but not with arrogant pricks who think their appreciation of it makes them better than anyone else.

Postscript: Mr. X is still a dick

A Stand-Up Guy

2004-05-26T14:18:00.000-05:00

Journal entry from November 2002: "Mike," an aspiring stand-up comic friend from Ohio, called last week looking for a place to stay in Chicago. He was on his way to the Star Search auditions and said he was "pretty sure" he could "crack the regionals." Mike already had a room lined up with another comic in Boys Town, but admitted he was hesitant about his host: "He lives in Boys Town, so, you know, it just doesn't seem...right" I mulled inviting Mike to sleep on the floor but decided not to call him back. I figured that since he’s a comedian, he'd be too broke to spring for a pizza and a six-pack. Also, he'll have to fend off dozens of roofie-toting Cher enthusiasts once he pursues a real career in show business, so why not get a dress rehearsal? Turns out he did stay with his Boys Town bunkmate, and did get gently macked on. I know as much because Mike left me 34 minutes of paranoid voicemails about "deviants," "this godawful neighborhood," and my “failure to be a friend.” Rather than take offense, I took pity on Mike, for his voicemails embodied the paradox of the stand-up comic. In their oft-delusional scrounging for sitcom deals, too many comics water down or neglect their darker thoughts and colder observations. They go "clean," as it's known, and in the process go down the crapper. Mike's voicemails were truly hysterical in their uncensored and ignorant rage, whereas his studied monologues about long lines at Starbucks and hairy women are not. He works so hard on crafting a portable and broadly appealing act that he ends up sterilizing the ugly, spastic fury that made everyone laugh years ago and encouraged his early efforts at open mic night. Even Jerry Seinfeld, a comic as safe as it gets, has said that anger fuels the best material, be it the coke-driven rants of Richard Pryor or the subtly caustic musings of early Bill Cosby. In a way, I wish I had saved Mike's voicemails. They're so wrong-headedly charming that if he heard them he might ditch his polished routines and embrace his roots as a violently defensive mama’s boy and formerly-obese karate nut (i.e. a gun nut with nun-chucks). Until then, I wish him well on Star Search.

The NYT scandal that never was...

2004-05-13T19:47:00.000-05:00

Years before Jayson Blair, the New York Times had a headache in Howard Blum, an author of cheesy UFO books who claimed to be an "award-winning former investigative journalist" for The Times. Like anyone who writes about aliens, Blum is derided by skeptics for shoddy research and a childish lack of skepticism. Jayson Blair may be bad news, but in the end he was a mere plagiarist; Blum, on the other hand, is the kind of nut who looks for secret messages in X-Files reruns. Keeping that in mind, I know what you must be thinking--that if Blum ever did work for the Times, he probably just answered phones, right? Nope. I found no evidence of the Times asking Blum to change his bio. Okay, then clearly, the Times found Blum a minor nuisance and decided that publicly refuting his claim would give him the attention he wanted. Think again. Blum is no household name, but he's not exactly a blip on the radar. His 1998 book about his search for Mt. Sinai, The Gold of Exodus, was excerpted by Vanity Fair. So what's going on here? Could it be that a third-rate Erich von Daniken actually reported, in at least a freelance capacity, for the New York Times? It sure looks like it to me. And in light of his aforementioned shoddy research and lack of skepticism, he probably fit right in.

The Skinny on Cheap DVDs

2004-05-12T19:33:00.000-05:00

Last year I bought a Charlie Chaplin DVD boxed set for the apparent bargain of ten bucks. When I got home and played the movie, the quality was horrible and the so-called "Special Features" consisted of a trivia contest full of inaccurate urban legends about the Little Tramp. Clearly, some guy had just checked a few Chaplin reels out of a library, transferred them to digital, made a few thousand copies, nabbed a distribution deal, and sold his inferior product to suckers like me. If you think I'm making this all sound too simple, think again. If you have an extra few thousand bucks you too can get involved in the Public Domain resale racket. Read this interview with the founder of Brentwood Home Video, a company that supplies the Best Buy chain with Kung-Fu DVD bundles.