Do you remember them?

Jerry Lewis and whatever semblance of celebrity he could cobble together, would entertain the hell out of you for 24 hours straight, and in return you would pledge money to help fight MD.

The shows always took place on Labour Day weekend– when absolutely nothing else happened– and since it was the only thing on TV we watched it like it was a seasonal tradition. Staying up with Jerry was a both a dare and a way to extend the summer. Still, the telethons felt like artifacts from another era, something that was owned by a generation previous to mine.

The Academy Awards have this feel, too, and I watch them mostly for the comforting, predictable sense of nostalgia they always conjure, but I found this year’s edition to be, well, confused. Was it a self-congratulatory ad for a dying industry, or was it stationed at the forefront of a social revolution? Was it about fashion and beauty or was it about it not being about fashion and beauty?

It proved complicated to decipher.

Host Jimmy Kimmel made an opening #MeToo friendly joke about the absurd irony of Mel Gibson starring in a movie called What Women Want.

It was a safe joke, one that picked a target everybody could agree upon, and it got what was almost relieved laughter. It might be hard to imagine now, but Mel Gibson was once a beautiful dream of potential.

Now he is an unredeemable laughing stock.

What was ironic was that in 2000, the year What Women Want came out and made tons of money, Jimmy Kimmel was co-hosting The Man Show. At the time, the slim and woke Oscar host was less slim and less woke, and The Man Show was all about tits. It was about grabbing them by the pussy. It was a white boy frat party.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl3wioLmNNY

And yet there was Jimmy Kimmel on Oscar night making jokes about Mel Gibson’s pernicious attitude toward woman while a bejeweled and admiring audience laughed their approval before him.

These moments of dissonance happened throughout the broadcast, the most vivid occurring when Wes Studi, a Cherokee actor you probably recognize but could never name, introduced a montage of military movies.

Clearly the depiction of violent masculinity in this particular climate was considered iffy, and as if to soften that potential for controversy and loss of market share, the production team got a member of an under represented community to introduce this unpopular, but tactically necessary segment. It was calculated, and when Studi opened by saying he was a proud veteran of the Vietnam War, the crowd’s confusion at how to respond was palpable. They no longer knew whether Studi stood for something good or bad, they could not interpret the symbol they were being shown. After the montage ended, and Studi uttered a dose of Cherokee– which at the time could have been either a blessing or curse– the audience opted for a shallow, incoherent applause.

You could also see the once unassailable Meryl Streep– who many believe did not do enough to stop Harvey Weinstein—giving way to the meme-friendly Francis McDormand as moral force and American exemplar. When once beloved comic Dave Chappelle came on stage to a spattering of applause, he found that the comedic power he held as an oppressed minority had been overshadowed by his criticism of #MeToo. The omnipresent and eager Ryan Seacrest, who somehow manages to emit a vibe that simultaneously suggests a Bro and a gay man, found himself snubbed on the red carpet by all the stars in response to an accusation of sexual misconduct levied against him. They were only too eager to nourish themselves on his fawning, promotional interviews before, but now?

And when Annabella Sciorra, Ashley Judd and Salma Hayek took the stage, glittering and beautiful and gazed upon from so many different points of view, it was hard to interpret all the mixed messages that were being sent out into the world.

Were these women brave activists or part of an exploitive one percent? Were they complicit in creating unrealistic expectations for women by  opting for cosmetic surgery, or were they victims of an industry that demanded it from them as if it was a tax for being a woman? Could everything be true at once?

The Jerry Lewis Telethon ended just a few years ago. Over the course of it’s lifetime it raised over 2.5 billion for those fighting MD, but it also did so in an often self-serving and patronizing, if not wholly lurid manner.

In the end, were all those telethons a good released into this world or an evil?

It’s impossible to know, I guess, but it strikes me that nobody is all good or all bad. Each one of us is a riot of contradictions, often engaged in actions that elude our articulation or even understanding. Our lives and character are much more circumstantial and precarious than most of us would care to admit, and we would all be well served to save a little empathetic space in our hearts for those we don’t necessarily understand or agree with.

Everything, really, depends on that.

This is a newsletter posted to the Super Yacht Community message board after the demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia :

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Recent events in Charlottesville, Virginia have shaken not just the USA, but the global community, too, including those of us who belong to The Super-Yacht Community.

Many of our members have been rattled by the proletariat uprisings in the US and across Europe, and have been wondering whether or not being a white supremacist is really grounds for termination.

First off, everybody should just stay calm and keep in mind that the vast majority of the people in the Super-Yacht Community are job creators, not job leaches (consumers), and so we really don’t have to worry about getting fired.

If you don’t have a job at let’s say, The Bulk Barn, then Black Lives Matters can’t take it away from you for wanting to protect history, can they?

Regardless, The Super-Yacht Community has never been an insensitive or selfish group, and we’re well aware that many of the people who help to sustain us ( Ferrari repairmen, avocado specialists, bikini makers, personal assistants, personal physicians, personal nutritionists, mindfulness coaches, topiarists, helicopter pilots, addiction specialists, nannies, hunting guides and taxidermists, high-end sex workers, off-shore bankers, professional sports teams, etc.), are still vulnerable to loss of employment and social standing due to unfashionable political beliefs.

For instance, supermodel and beloved Super-Yacht Community member Tanya Mityushina has a brother named Dimitri.

(Dimitri is the one on the far right holding the “Nog Ar Nog) shield.

He worked as a DJ at a nightclub in Miami called Waves of Fire. Here, Dimitri enjoyed multiple revenue streams and unprecedented sexual opportunities. This young man was going places, but unfortunately his image was caught on camera while he was exercising his freedom of speech at a demonstration in Virginia and this (as well as his spirited thoughts on eugenics) resulted in in his termination.

In order to combat this lynching, we at the Super-Yacht Community have decided to start a Go Fund Me for Dimitri so that he might buy his own nightclub. It is to be tentatively called Tsunami Inferno, and it will be twice as large as Waves of Fire. We are looking at a target of $25 million to help Tanya’s brother get back up on his feet, so if any of you have an spare properties lying around downtown Miami, please feel free to donate!

On a melancholy note, we within the Super-Yacht Community (no longer officially affiliated with the Illuminati) and are deeply saddened that we recently lost one of our own. Glen Campbell was a great member of our community and a transcendent talent who truly made the world a better place. He will be missed.

Pace et requiem est, Rhinestone Cowboy.

And finally, please remember, if America burns there will be plenty of economic opportunity for our community.

Nisi eliphaz,

The SYC

PS: Also, keep in mind that everybody is welcome aboard Bono’s Super-Yacht “Kingdom Come” for a barbecue next week in Fiji. And yes, Ivanka will be there, so be prepared for a little larger press and military presence than usual.

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1. America, founded on the principle of freedom to worship, has always been a post-truth, multiple-reality landscape.

2. Trump did not usher in this new era of darkness but simply illuminated it.
3. America has always been full of contradicting beliefs, none of which are rooted in facts.

4. We don’t make decision based on facts, and are in no way demonstrably rational in our actions.
5. We have always been starring in our movies, but with each individual taking orders from a different director whose a plan and reality unconnected to our own.
6. For instance, some people think the a woman’s body is so dangerous it must be shrouded in public.

7. Others that their Lord would be angry if they were so vain as to wear a button.

8. Still, more people believed that you wouldn’t get into heaven unless you are wearing a pair of Nike Decades.

9. One religion’s followers wear special underwear, carrying with them a certainty that their heavenly reward will be to live on planet Kolob making “spirit babies.”
10. Atheists, who have not been around very long cosmologically speaking, believe they’ve understood enough of the limitless universe and its timeless expanse, as to proclaim that no higher power exists.
11. These are not fringe groups.
12. Each one of these commitments is rock solid and unshakable, a central post in that person’s life. Yet none of them are based in any way on “facts.”
13. We were founded in a post-truth era.
14. Since Trump’s election, people have been talking about “fake news” and the difference between “good” and “bad” news.
15. The irony is that the media has always been a part of the economy.
16. It is a commodity that we buy, like popcorn.
17. As long as media serves a corporate entity, it does not serve the people.
18. And the less reliable media, the media that doesn’t have a paywall or registration, is a quicker more appealing option.
19. Getting news is not the problem, there are limitless options, sifting it is.
20. This means it’s easier for the wealthy/elites, who have more time and can pay for services, to be more rigorously informed than the rest of the people.
21. This further divides the inequality that is starting to define the nation.
22. We are ridiculous and we know nothing.

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1. The Dakota Access Pipeline was halted.

2. I was happy to hear this, although the truth is I really don’t know very much about it.
3. In my mind, I was on the side of Tribal Elders and Water.
4. That was how I wanted to be identified.

5. Our politics signify how we want to be identified, our tribal affiliation, more than they represent our reasoned policy positions.
6. Few people break from the orthodoxy of their tribe.
7. There were more than 4,000 veterans at Standing Rock supporting the “Water Protectors”
8. And so the police had to face not just the moral authority of the protesters and native elders, but also thousands of vets, of people just like them.
9. There was a Go Fund Me page that raised over a million dollars for this group.
10. I have no idea if this group was instrumental in getting the pipeline halted, but they had to change the dynamic greatly.
11. I would suggest this become the future of civil disobedience.
12. Crowd source militia groups to protect you as you protest.
13. Be it in Standing Rock, Ferguson, Wall Street or elsewhere.

14. Make the arms of authority confront themselves when they confront you.

15. No nation churns out angry, marginalized veterans like the USA.

Donald J. Trump: I just hope that Brad was smart and had a prenup like I did. #ArtofTheDeal

Donald J. Trump: Getting married, like ISIS, is no joke– you need to be ruthless when you end it!

Donald J. Trump: It’s a nuclear situation. #VladisaGreatLeader

Donald J. Trump: Brad Pitt, a little flaky. In a golf tournament with him once. No sense for the game.

Donald J. Trump: Quite a bit shorter than me, but still a real looker.

Donald J. Trump: Anyway, when you’re rich and powerful you can have your pick. That’s the American way.

Donald J. Trump: Brad knows that, so why would he stay with damaged goods?

Donald J. Trump: Why would America stay with damaged goods? Time for a change, America! #TrumpIceGreatestWaterEver

Donald J. Trump: Sure, Angelina was really something a few year ago, but now? After all those cancer surgeries? Brad can do better. America can do better! #VoteTrump

Donald J. Trump: Do people notice Crooked and Sick Hillary is copying my airplane rallies – she puts the plane behind her like I have been doing from the beginning.

Donald J. Trump: Crooked and Sick Hillary is taking the day off again, she needs the rest. Sleep well Crooked and Sick Hillary – see you at the debate!

Donald J. Trump: Wonder if Gwyneth Paltrow had anything to do with the end of Brangelina?

Donald J. Trump: Wouldn’t put it past her.

Donald J. Trump: You gotta watch out for the exes. Always come crawling back.

Donald J. Trump: Paltrow married a Brit. Always putting on a fake accent. Don’t trust her.

Donald J. Trump: Both she and Angelina are washed up. Sad.

Donald J. Trump: Bet Jennifer Aniston is happy now.

Donald J. Trump: There’s an American. A real girl next door.

Donald J. Trump: Rachel, and those headlights? Whoah. What American man didn’t want to shtup her?

Donald J. Trump: I would take my chances with her, she’s one Skittle I’d eat regardless of the poison risk. #NoToSyrianRefugees

Donald J. Trump: Did I have sex with Jennifer Aniston? Gentlemen don’t tell. #Probably

Donald J. Trump: Did I have sex with Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie? All I will say is I am very happy with my beautiful wife.

Donald J. Trump: Melania will be the most beautiful First Lady in history!

Donald J. Trump: I know it’s not politically correct to say, but Crooked Hillary has to be the ugliest FLOTUS in history!

Donald J. Trump: Why would we want her as the ugliest POTUS, too?

Donald J. Trump: Brad Pitt hates Crooked Hillary.

Donald J. Trump: I don’t even think Bill had sex with Crooked, Sick Hillary. #WasChelseaAdopted

Donald J. Trump: Crooked Hillary wants to take your 2nd Amendment rights away. Will guns be taken from her heavily armed Secret Service detail? Maybe not!

Donald J. Trump: However, you do have to hand it to Angelina for taking her clothes off in so many movies. Very brave.

Donald J. Trump: Nobody braver than our troops though! Not even naked Angelina!

Donald J. Trump: She never would have had a done a nude scene if she was a Muslim. #FeministsForTrump

Donald J. Trump: Think about it America.

Donald J. Trump: Commemorative Donald Trump coins now available for order. #Buy9The10thForFree

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Heidi head of pack security.

She a natural.

Heidi very fierce, think fast and so quick on feet it make you think maybe ghost in your head. Heidi so mean she make medicine sick. Death jaws can crush full soup cans. You think you can hide from Heidi? Wrong! Heidi smell all. You dig hole to hide, Heidi find hole and dig up hole, Heidi relentless. Heidi kill 6 mice and too many fly to count.

So, so many dead fly.

Chomp.

Fly dead.

Not know what hit them.

Heidi hit them, bro.

Heidi believe in freedom.

Heidi always on guard.

Heidi live free or die.

You should know Heidi pack now larger. Heidi job very important. There was summer litter in den. There is now new two-legger in pack with messy face that always need licking. Small and chubby. Can’t move, just fall forward and make bird sounds. Useless.

Little-legger only cry and bring attention to pack location. Always putting food at risk. Messy face make pack very soft target. Up to Heidi to be extra vigilant and do surveillance at back door. Heidi study shapes and shadow, bark at noise and charge like lion dinosaur to fight all intruders.

Serious stuff.

Biggest threat to security?

Squirrels.

Heidi hate squirrels with fury and passion.

Squirrels think they big shot because can dart quickly and tree fly, but not big shot! Just rat with bushy tail. Squirrel so stupid can’t even wag bushy tail. Just stick tail up in air like surrender flag! Squirrels, filthy, depraved and immoral tribe of cowards who will sneak into pack den and steal kennel or Captain Crunch cereal when napping after long day of guarding, licking and barking.

Heidi would kill every dirty squirrel in world and then wag wag wag tail as she watched them burn in hellfire for eternity.

But just to be clear, Heidi not bigot.

Heidi think all animal equal.

But squirrels evil.

Heidi just know the truth.

Heidi hate, hate, hate squirrels.

You don’t like it, you de-friend Heidi.

Heidi don’t care.

This squirrel on Heidi Most Wanted List.

Very, very fat squirrel. He grey, the colour of giving up. Heidi never give up. Heidi black like eternal night and tan like good suede. Heidi stare at squirrel. Mean, death stare. In this picture, taken by surveillance camera just before Heidi was about to attack, disgusting squirrel have boner. So gross and creepy! Squirrel boner worst thing in world!! And then squirrel begin to interfere with self!! So gross-out Heidi turn away to vomit, and when she do, fat boner squirrel go into Heidi den and steal Macadamia nuts from pantry!! MACADAMIA NUTS VERY EXPENSIVE!! Heidi don’t want to know what else sex offender squirrel do, but Heidi vow to kill sex offender squirrel!! Rip to pieces and make necklace from squirrel claws.

If you see this squirrel, report to Heidi immediately!

Very, very bad squirrel!!

The first image that I saw from the hostage crisis in Sydney was this:

My eye was immediately drawn to the lovely, young woman on the left, her eyes closed as if she could not bear to watch the nightmare she was now living. Softly, it seemed, as if growing faint with disbelief, she and another woman were forced to place the gunman’s sign up in the coffee shop window– just above a cheerful and familiar stencil of Merry Christmas— for the entire world to see. Something very different and beyond our comprehension was replacing the world we knew and loved, and it didn’t matter whether the white Arabic lettering on an ominous black background (making it look like some sort of pirate flag) was authentic ISIS or not, it felt like ISIS and that was sufficient.

To me, this photograph could only mean one thing, and that was that something beautiful and loved was going to be slaughtered before our eyes. Somebody’s perfect child, somebody who was falling in love and building a life, was about to die in the name of a politics few could truly understand. This young woman immediately became a stand-in for every high school girl I had ever known, every waitress or barista I had a secret crush on, in short, every glowing and ascendant person who made my day, or even just the idea of my day, a little brighter.

Halfway around the world in Pennsylvania, another tragedy, one much less publicized, but also containing a thread linking it back to the Middle East, was unfolding. Brad Stone, a marine who had been deployed in Iraq but was now walking with a cane and suffering PTS, was murdering his family. He killed 6 people and seriously wounded another before stabbing himself to death in the nearby woods.

Man Haron Monis, the deeply trouble Iranian-born refugee who caused so much havoc and fear in Sydney, appears to have been so completely deranged as to be almost divorced from politics, but whatever madness possessed him drew him to adopt radical and violent ideologies. Stone, who had fought in Iraq, returned damaged, beyond the nation’s capacity or willingness to salvage. Both of these men proved to be murderous examples of the collateral damage associated with whatever Orwellian title you want to give the ongoing conflicts (War on Terror, Clash of Civilization, Oil Wars) in the Middle East.

Such violent, tragic outbursts are not political statements against policy, but are the vivid, real life consequences of the policy. If a land is bombed and destroyed by an invading nation, both those that do the invading and those that suffer at their hands are damaged in irreparable and unimaginable ways—the experience poisons the soul. There is no winner in such a war, except for the economic machinery that profits from it. The rage, pain and loss of those on the ground can never be measured or contained, and will forever bleed back into the world, manifesting as a furious, sucking whirlpool of such force that everybody is affected.

Here are some other celebrity endorsements that Rob Ford has recently received:

“Rob Ford and I see eye to eye on many issues, and let me tell you, there is nobody on the planet who is bigger supporter of the NFL than that man. Toronto deserves a team, and I would proudly wear their colours once my suspension is up.”

–Ray Rice, suspended Baltimore Ravens running back

“Send Rob Ford all your pitiful candidates for mayor, he will humiliate them everywhere, and God willing, he will raise the flag of Ford Nation over Toronto!

–ISIS leader and press officer

“The man knows quality and understands both the free market and the threat of the Chinese. I wish that there were two of him so that one could be mayor of New York City.”

–Donald Trump, real estate agent and Twitter user

“A stand-up guy who never sold fakes. If you got a celebrity nude from Rob Ford, you knew it was the real deal.”

–Originalguy, screen name of the person responsible for the celebrity nude leaks on 4Chan

“Ford is tough on crime because he really understands crime. He knows what it’s like to be on the front lines. That’s the kind of man you want leading your city. I endorse Rob Ford for mayor of Toronto.”

–Darren Wilson, Ferguson police officer

“Nobody cares more about black people than Rob Ford. He is a visionary and he should know that a cross on his chest drawn in oil will protect him from all enemies.”

–Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army

“When I pass a flowering zucchini plant in a garden, my heart skips a beat. Rob Ford is Toronto’s flowering zucchini plant. He is a treasure.”

–Gwyneth Paltrow

And so for first-time director Aaron Wilson, who debuted his film Canopy at the festival, it must have been a validating and exciting experience. The movie has a very simple premise. An Australian pilot gets shot down while battling the Japanese over Singapore and improbably bonds with a Chinese soldier similarly trying to elude capture.

The central characters of this film—which is almost devoid of dialogue—aren’t really the actors playing the roles, but the jungle in which the story unfolds and the hyper-accented soundscape that surrounds them. Wilson is trying to do something different here, but in so doing Canopy comes across as more of a concept of a film than a film itself, an interesting idea in theory, but in practice maybe not so much.

It’s impossible to see this movie and not think of Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red line.

I don’t think that there’s a film on the planet that compares well to it, and Canopy is no exception. Although Canopy is beautiful to look at, it never establishes an emotional grip on the audience, relying too heavily on the mechanisms of filmmaking rather than the film itself. For instance, after a spell, the wordlessness of the movie becomes burdensome, a cinematic imposition rather than an organic necessity of circumstance and disparate languages. Clearly, the director wants us keenly focused on the canopy of sound covering the silent action, but he points us so intentionally in this direction it’s as if we’re following a neon-signs-lit detour route.  The acoustics swiftly become a clumsy, almost naive contrivance that is master rather than servant to the film, pulling us away rather than in.

Perhaps if the actors were more expressive or physically compelling, the director’s reach wouldn’t have so exceeded his grasp. As it is, in spite of its lyrical flourishes and allusive passages, the movie has a constructed, almost humid weight. As we move from one poetic war trope to the next, as if in some theme park yet to be invented, Canopy does little more than ask you to like it.

When it ended, the near-full house applauded, as if in encouragement, it seemed, rather than appreciation. The director and his key people took the floor, ready for a Q & A, and the last amongst them to do so was the lead actor, Khan Chittenden. As is often the case, he was smaller and more vulnerable than you would have expected after having just seen him up there on the giant screen, and as he youthfully bounded down from his seat, he threw up an arm to the crowd, he too hoping for more than what was received.

Q. What is your idea of perfect happiness?

A. To live a life free of false reports about Syria, and the constant threat of US propaganda and weaponry insulting and destroying our lives!

Q. What is your greatest fear?

A. Bombs.

Q. Which living person do you most admire?

A. I admire my brothers in the Syrian Electronic Army.

Q. What is your favourite journey?

A. It is when I journey online to hack American systems. I feel like I am visiting the nation myself and that I fight for truth and freedom. Of course, I also look forward to the Haj once I am older, have more money and less threats hanging over my head, and as strange as it may sound, I would also like to see Disneyland.

Q. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

A. Physical strength. It is more important to be strong in the heart and mind. It amazes me that girls– Amira in particular– never seem to see this truth.

Q. On what occasion do you lie?

A. To protect the secrecy of the Syrian Electronic Army.

Q. Which living person do you most despise?

A. I hate Barack Obama very much, as I do Bush 1 and Bush 2, but I truly despise Harout. He is dishonest with the girls that I know, particularly sweet Amira, and he does not care about them, only himself and wrestling. He will know the wrath of the Syrian Electronic Army!

Q. What do you dislike most about your appearance?

A. I would like to be physically bigger and stronger so that I might punch Harout and win Amira from him. I would hit him in the throat so hard he would no longer be able to eat.

Q. What is your greatest regret?

A. It is personal, but it has to do with Amira.

Q. What or who is the greatest love of your life?

A. Next question, please.

Q. What is the trait you deplore most in yourself?

A. Ha! That one is as easy to hack as The Huffington Post! I am terribly messy and you can ask any of my brothers if this is the truth! Also, I do not spend enough time with my pet.

Q. What is the trait you most deplore in others?

A. It is the hypocritical bombing of a free people.

Q. What is your greatest extravagance?

A. Sneakers. I have many pairs, perhaps 20.

Q. When and where were you happiest?

A. It was on the beach at Ras Al Bassit. Amira and I laughed and played in the waves as it rained one early evening. We were dolphins.

1. Operation Jesus Walks With Me

2. Operation Syrius Shit

3. Operation Assault on Mordor

4. Operation Bash Assad

5. Operation We’ve Been Drinking

6. Operation Destroyacus

7. Operation Mediterranean Diet of Death

8. Operation Twerkstorm

9. Operation Arab Sting

10. Celebrity Death Strike