Hmmm … the course of Marxist genius never runs smoothly.

If you don’t believe me, read the life of Bertolt Brecht.

However, Peter Sellars’ Marxism, as Wikipedia prefers to translate it, is to be a “progressively radical” artist of some sort.

With President Obama in the White House, it can now be known as “radically Progressive”: the Progressive Clinton as versus the radically Progressive Obama.

Radicalism, a la Van Jones, even as seen through the eyes of the Huffington Post, is the inevitability of the “Progressive” New World Order, whether you like it or not.

There is, however, one impressively dialectical twist in this drama: women such as Alice Goodman, the librettist.

Her Marxist heresy, because of the ministerial collar, is what is sometimes referred to by the KGB  hardliners as the Western Sentimentality of “useful idiots” and the decadent schmaltz seems to have escaped even the intriguingly odd but hawk-eyed Peter Sellars.

Reverend Goodman is still a “Progressive” of the Progressively Baptist Bill Clinton sort. She is actually an ordained Anglican priest; and is now a chaplain at Trinity College, Cambridge.

The initial Wizard of Nixon In China happened to be the director, Peter Sellars.

The real Wizard, however, is Alice Goodman.

Peter Sellars’ instincts about Alice Goodman were Brechtian genius itself.

However, Alice Goodman’s love of God’s mysteries seemed to have escaped even the hawk-eyed and progressively radical Peter Sellars.

Either that or he simply endured the “mysteries” within Ms. Goodman’s poetry as allowably Buddhist.

Communism is ultimately no sin to Buddhism. The Dalai Lama actually admits to being a Marxist.

Besides, the John Adams’ musical portrait of Chou En-Lai contains the requisite, albeit poetic, sentimentality required to sell Chou En-Lai to America as the real hero of Nixon In China.

Score ten for the Progressive New World Order!

The music, in fact “minimalism” in general, just seems a lazy way to whip out hours of agitation for a profoundly complex encounter between two massively powerful cultures.

Laying that aside, what kept me glued to the You Tube video of the Houston Opera Company’s Production was Alice Goodman’s libretto.

Quite annoyingly, that libretto is not available on the internet. Scores of the entire opera cost $120 Canadian dollars … including delivery of course.

All I wished to see was the libretto but then how will John Adams get his share of the profits from a poetess he and Peter Sellars singlehandedly made?! Who taught them Marxist economics?

Michael Moore?

Sean Penn?

Is this Marxism? Or just good ole American, villainous Capitalism?

Rev. Goodman, however, and her firmly feminist point of view dominates Nixon In China. How else could she earn post-modern credentials with these Marxist men in her life?

She does indeed spare no amount of operatic melodrama in examining both the heroine and villainess of Nixon In China.

Ms. Goodman’s own romantic yearnings, God bless her, rise up not only in the huge question Chou En-Lai leaves us hanging on at the end, but also in the Cultural Revolution Ballet. This play-within-an-opera ballet and its hero and heroine, its Romeo and Juliet, caught amidst the Machiavellian nightmares within the Nixon In China opera itself?

Would she had Rachmaninoff’s lyricism and Stravinsky’s muscle to canonize the brilliant contrasts that sit and eagerly wait for a great composer. Then again, those two composers were decidedly not Marxists. Stravinsky was Russian Orthodox and exiled himself to, of all places, hamburger-eating, pre-Nixon America.

The ideological contrasts of Nixon In China alone make the encounter with Ms. Goodman herself fascinating.

Here she is!

Reverend Goodman, mind you!

A Marxist Christian?

She’s certainly a big fan of Chou En-Lai.

He’s the hero of Nixon In China.

You were right, Mr. Adams!

The idea of Nixon In China was a “risky” one … but possibly helpful enough to pave Elitism’s Way for Bill Clinton and Barack Obama to both become Presidents of the United States.

Hmmm … now there’s the major question of not only this editorial, and this hour but this coming decade … and possibly this century … or human infinity.

Can there be such a thing as a Marxist Christian?

The Dalai Lama himself is a Marxist and Chosen One of Buddha!

Why not?

There was Liberation Catholicism running all around South America, wasn’t there?

God and Karl Marx.

The Almighty and The Grandest of Atheists!

Who can’t see them married?!

The alternate lifestyle of a Marxist … no, the Community Organizing Fundamental of a Progressive New World Order!

“Let’s wear down those ugly Americans such as Sarah Palin!!”

“If she becomes President America will have the West’s version of Mao’s Chiang Ching!!!”

“Maggie Thatcher in jack boots!!!!”

“Ronald Reagan in drag!!!!!”

“A virtual animal! Mamma Grizzly as POTUS!!!!!!”

“The solution is to surround these ‘stupid people’ with not only their cultural superiors like Bill Maher The Atheist but their religious superiors such as Alice Goodman as well.”

“They’ll never be able to understand the divine subtleties within the Marriage of God and Karl Marx!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“Such an achievement is far beyond the vulgarities of Catholic idiocies such as Figaro or Mozart’s Don Giovanni!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“Match-making God and Karl is the only possible hope for peace, you know.”

“If not, Judeo-Christians, you are toast!! Toast!!! Toast!!!!!”

This last bit of libretto within my comic opera is sung in falsetto, a la Alban Berg.

Having spent two whole days with Nixon In China, I sympathize sincerely with Chou En-Lai’s exhaustion in the final scene.

As for Henry Kissinger, the double for a villainous landowner in the Cultural Revolution Ballet?

Here he isas The 20^th Century’s Greatest Courtier.

Why am I so sure that both Goodman and Adams are Marxists?

Anticipating the increasingly obvious and desperately inevitable marriage of Marx and Islam, they both, along with Sellars as well, prophetically mind you, gave voice to the Palestinian version of Israel’s “unacceptability” in their next opera, “The Death of Klinghoffer”.

From Wikipedia:

Following “Nixon,” the three collaborated on a second opera, “The Death of Klinghoffer,” about the 1985 Achille Lauro hijacking by Palestinians in which an elderly American Jew was killed. It premiered in 1991 but was promptly assailed by charges that it was anti-Semitic and glorified Palestinian terrorists. Several planned productions were canceled and the work has rarely been performed since, although the Opera Theater of St. Louis is presenting it next June.

Adams, Goodman and Sellars repeatedly claimed that they were trying to give equal voice to both Israelis and Palestinians with respect to the political background.

But the period of composition was a momentous one for Goodman personally. Raised a Reform Jew in St. Paul, Minn., she had married English poet Geoffrey Hill, and while writing “Klinghoffer” she converted to Christianity. She was later ordained as an Anglican priest and is currently winding up a stint as chaplain at Trinity College, Cambridge.

This Christian Marxist felt obliged to give two sides of the story in this second opera and here’s a larger version of “The Death of Klinghoffer”.

Communist Islam rising!!!

Can you hear the orchestra in full fortissimo??????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last night I glimpsed the British version of Alice Goodman. It was Vanessa Redgrave sitting in the audience of the Tony Awards.

Both Goodman and Redgrave?

Oh, not both at The Tony Awards but brilliantly “useful talents” for the Communist Revolution.

The fact that God gave the two of them their talents seems a lie to Vanessa and a reason for Alice to make God a Marxist.

Now that’s not a bad idea for an opera: Marx’s conversion of God to Communism!

Obviously Alice Goodman is the only poet qualified to write the libretto since she obviously feels that is exactly what must have happened.

Alice Goodman, the Brechtian poet of Heaven.

Where’s Kurt Weill when you need him?

And who could possibly sing the role of God?

If it’s a movie?

The ghost of Frank Sinatra.

Italian Communism is, of course, as complex a thing as Alice Goodman might possibly want to confuse us with.

Unfortunately I doubt if Mr. Sinatra will want to even show up for rehearsal.

Why?

Karl Marx would be a tenor!

The tenor always steals the show from the baritone in an opera.

God is not Wozzeck.

The Almighty is never quite that stupid.

I’m sorry Oliver, but as a *wink-wink* pro-Hugo Chavez filmmaker you can’t ask the Venezuelan strongman to let you film him pedaling around on a little girl’s bicycle and then not edit out the part where he falls off without giving away that subversive right-wing desire of yours to make a world-wide joke of a tyrant clown who hates your beloved America and cozies up to the terrorists who would do her harm. So don’t blame me. You blew your own cover.

And for those who doubt this theory, let me present to you the facts. Below are highlights from Stone’s illustrious career. Take a good look at what this patriot’s accomplished and then tell me he’s not a double agent for God and apple pie:

—–

SCARFACE (1983): Stone wrote the screenplay about the consequences of a feckless president (Carter) being duped by a dictator (Castro) into letting a bunch of criminals into the country. If there’s a stronger and more effective piece of anti-open border propaganda, I have yet to see it. Stone was ahead of this curve by a full quarter of a century.

—–

WALL STREET (1987): Pure genius. Hands down the greatest recruitment tool for Wall Street ever produced, and done so with Leftist Hollywood’s money. Stone so romanticized the business of finance that Wall Street was flooded with young men wanting to get their greed-is-good on.

—–

BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY (1989): After winning the Oscar for “Platoon,” Stone could make any film he wanted and chose the most damning portrayal of dirty, filthy, narcissistic, anti-war hippies ever.  Tom Cruise portrays Ron Kovic, a heroic individual who fought for his country in Vietnam, but the director (who would win his second Oscar) turns him into one of the most unlikable screen protagonists of the last 25 years.

—–

THE DOORS (1991): Stone does it again, this time portraying the baby boomer’s precious sixties as a hedonistic nightmare of drug addiction, domestic violence, and open paganism. Jim Morrison’s legions of poorly dressed worshippers (and the surviving Doors) were furious at Stone’s deconstruction of their precious idol.

—–

JFK (1991): An absolutely brilliant film, maybe the best of the decade, and the finest piece of reverse-propaganda ever committed to celluloid. Stone wraps his cinematic ridicule of the Grassy Knollers into a wild fever dream of outlandishly stupid conspiracy theories knowing that the result would be a renewed interest in the JFK assassination in the era of computer technology and forensic science. And now, thanks to both those sciences, we no longer doubt Lee Harvey Oswald worked alone. Yes, we owe Oliver Stone a debt of gratitude for helping to heal the deepest national wound of the 20th Century.

—–

NIXON (1995): Only Nixon could go to China and only Stone could ask us to feel sorry for the crook.

—–

WORLD TRADE CENTER (2006): This is where Stone almost screwed up and let his true self show. Like every other rational American, the director made the mistake of thinking Hollywood would finally turn around and rally to their country’s side in the war against Islamic terrorism after the attacks of September 11th. Obviously, when Stone looked over his shoulder and found himself alone he realized he had made the same mistake we all did.

But ever the genius spy, he rallied quickly with…

—–

W. (2008): To save President Bush from further cinematic embarrassment, Stone wisely got ahead of the Hate-Filled Hollywood Hack Brigade to intentionally produce a money-losing Bush bio so embarrassingly awful it would poison the well and make it impossible for anyone to even consider making another. Mission accomplished.

And Stone’s 4th of July gift to America this year…?

—–

SOUTH OF THE BORDER (2010): Stone completely blows his cover as an obvious right-winger by simply going too far in acting the Useful Idiot. No one is this useful of an idiot.

For 78 minutes that feel like a bad “60 Minutes” segment that never ends; Stone’s on-camera, running around South America interviewing Leftist leaders of various countries who hate America. After making kissy-face with Hugo, the director then heads South to chew coca leaves with Bolivia’s Evo Morales, during — ironically (or not?) — a discussion about how the DEA is just another tool of American Imperialism. After the coca leaves take effect, the subtitles should’ve read AWKWARD when Stone asks Morales to step outside the Presidential Palace so the two of them can kick around a soccer ball. Obviously star-struck, Morales agrees and the result is like a deleted scene from Chaplin’s “Great Dictator.”

Michael Moore makes an appearance bawling out CNN’s Wolf — I lost on Jeopardy – Blitzer for waiting until 2007 to get angry with Dick Cheney; Stone gushes to Chavez, “I’ve never seen such energy, never,” and later asks (no joke) Argentina’s president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner how many pairs of shoes she owns. But the topper is how the two-time Oscar winner continually spits out the words “capitalism” and “privately-owned media” as though they’re both bad things.

The documentary is unforgivably dull and the America bashing repetitive. “Border” isn’t even well produced. Instead of coloring the subtitles yellow, they’re white and at times impossible to read. And Stone just tries too hard to convince us he’s a left-wing dupe. The soaring, over-the-top score that accompanies every speech Chavez gives about the people’s revolucion is right out of a Zucker brothers’ spoof.

So obvious are the lies here, that the New York Times – The New York Times – felt compelled to fact check. But even they missed some obvious ones. Are we really supposed to believe President Bush told one of these leaders that war is the answer to a bad national economy? Stone never questions that little anecdote. He just shakes his head knowingly before yukking it up with Uncle Fidel’s tyrant brother.

If anything, the premise of Stone’s agitprop is all about hair-splitting. The director’s indignant that the American media, especially Fox News, refers to Chavez as a dictator. My guess is that Chavez would prefer being called a dictator on Fox and Friends as opposed to being seen on big-screens throughout the world falling off his little sister’s bike.

But that’s Stone’s brilliant right-wing master plan, right? What else could it be? The only other answer is that he’s laughably incompetent….

Nah, he’s one of us.

Continued after the jump.

The 1970s showed the once-invincible comic book super-heroes to be losers, in attitude and sales. Watergate had disillusioned the super-patriot Captain America with a storyline implying Nixon was the head of a terrorist group. The Captain trashes his outfit and becomes Nomad, The Man without a Country. My 11-year-old mind thought this was ridiculous, as Cap was originally a Depression-era 98-pound weakling until given a Super Soldier serum to bulk up and fight Nazis. It was unlikely that one of the “Greatest Generation” would bail on his country so readily. Even then I realized that this development merely mirrored a hippie writer’s attitude more than staying true to a character’s origins. 

Super-heroes became bleaker and even homicidal in the 1980s. The Punisher, a murderous vigilante, has become a top Marvel character. The Dark Knight Returns, a re-imagining of Batman, introduced an elderly caped crusader fighting the corrupt U.S. government represented by a stoogish Superman. Watchmen was set in a dystopic alternate reality where Nixon is still president and the super-group is made up of, among other miscreants, a rapist and mass murderer. It was a transmutation of established super-heroes from the 60s with Steve Ditko’s Objectivist hero The Question recast as the psychotic Rorschach. 

Ironically, while super-heroes have become leaders in the Hollywood box office, these films don’t help comics’ diminishing sales. In the 1940s, if a comic didn’t sell over a million copies it was cancelled. By the 80s, the cut-off point was 100,000 copies. Now companies are extremely happy selling 10,000 copies. The only time sales increase is when the publishers appeal to diehard collectors by releasing a title with multiple variant covers, and they gotta have ‘em all, or a new first issue of a popular character. Comic sales are at an all-time low and basically kept alive as merchandise-generators for film and other products. Time-Warner recently moved DC Comics from their publishing stable to the film division. Disney has bought Marvel Comics and it wasn’t for the stellar sales of their publications. 

One reason comic sales in general have dropped is because it is a one-genre medium (though there’s still Archie!). It’s as if the movie industry only made westerns and not comedies, science fiction, romance or other types of films. The industry has also ghettoized itself with the advent of the direct sales system. As sales withered on the newsstand (along with newsstands themselves), comic stores popped up with a new distribution paradigm. Copies that weren’t sold on the newsstand were sent back to the distributor for credit. With direct sales the books are non-returnable. They sell a lot less but they’re guaranteed sales. At first a supplement to newsstand distribution, like subscriptions, they are now the main source of revenue. 

Lower print runs have been blamed on the usual suspects; television, video games and the Internet. In fact publishers are marketing to the hard-core fanboy, an increasingly shrinking demographic. Stan Lee had introduced on-going storylines and continuity throughout his books. Earlier stories rarely continued and various super-heroes almost never interacted. Anyone could pick up a comic and read a self-contained story with a beginning and end. Now Stan’s continuity has mutated into ridiculous proportions with plot lines crossing over multiple issues and titles. The casual reader cannot pick up a singular issue and enjoy it, let alone understand it. One has to know the convoluted backgrounds of hundreds of characters or it won’t make any sense. There are obviously more people who might want to read comics than just comic geeks, but they can’t begin to unravel the catechism of modern super-heroes. Still more can’t find comics outside of comic book specialty shops and may not dare enter a place festooned with images of veiny, muscled goons lugging weapons and dripping blood. 

Super hero movies are popular for the same reason comics used to be attractive. They take you to a world of stunning visuals, exciting situations and heroic characters… unfortunately, the films are now beginning to fall in the same trap as comics. The most recent Batman and Spider-Man films featured the characters as darker, borderline evil, individuals and Marvel plans to introduce continuity to their movies. They will release new films with Captain America, Thor, Ant Man and others and then mush them all together with Iron Man and Hulk in an Avengers film. People who may have missed an earlier episode may not bother to see a later one where you’re expected to know all the characters’ baggage. 

Most disappointing in the superhero film trend was Superman Returns. The quintessential American super-hero becomes a metrosexual who ditches his baby mama Lois Lane for an outer space road trip to find himself and it tanked at the box office. The film pointedly refers to him fighting for truth and justice, but it’s not cool to mention the American way. Even the fabled Justice League of America is now termed the Justice League in a nod to one-worldness. 

It’s nearly impossible to find a comic that doesn’t star an angst-ridden anti-hero. The end of exceptional American super-heroes is here.

Here’s an excerpt:

Chapter Five, Personalities, Politics and Powerbrokers

Somehow late night talk shows became a logical first step for politicians to reach voters. Somehow rock stars became a political voice of the disenfranchised. Somewhere along the way, American politics and pop culture personalities began to blend.

Blame it on Ike letting cameras into the White House, and perhaps Clinton blowing his sax on The Arsenio Hall Show – ‘celebrity creep’ into American politics seems to spread over time. Each campaign and each candidate changes the rules, receiving endorsements from big stars and taking lots and lots of their money.

G8 Summit, Gleneagles, Scotland, July 2005 Pres. George W. Bush, rock star Bono, First Lady Laura Bush and musician Bob Geldof hold a working meeting on Africa at the G8 Summit. Geldof praised Bush for delivering billions to fight disease and poverty, and blasted the U.S. media for ignoring the achievement. Geldof said Bush “has done more than any other President so far. This is the triumph of American policy.” (White House photo by Eric Draper.)

It is commonplace for celebrities to stump for candidates, throw lavish fund-raisers and donate mountains of their own cash. Television advertisement wars, funding a “ground game,” and a connecting with voters takes big money. And, there is lots of ‘gold in them hills’ – Beverly Hills! Bottomless wells of cash await that can make or break a candidate’s chance at success.

Oval Office, The White House, December 1970 Superstar Elvis Presley poses for an official photo with Pres. Richard M. Nixon.  The photograph remains one of the most requested documents from the National Archives.  Presley wrote Nixon a lengthy letter expressing disdain for hippie drug culture and asking to be named a “Federal Agent At Large.” Nixon, eager to gain inroads with young people, granted Presley’s wish and presented a badge from the U.S. Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. Presley got his wish.  At Presley’s request, the meeting remained a secret until the Washington Post broke the story in 1972 (Courtesy National Archives.)

Glamorous Hollywood stars helped Truman and Eisenhower kick-start national optimism after Word War II. Fleetwood Mac’s hit “Don’t Stop (Thinking About Tomorrow)” became a powerful refrain for President Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign. Perhaps no campaign involved so many vocal celebrities as President Obama’s 2008 race for President. There was a day when a candidate thought hanging around with rock stars sent the wrong signal. When that star is someone like heartland rocker Bruce Springsteen, it might send just the signal the candidate needs to reach a key voting bloc.

Century Plaza Hotel, Los Angeles, California, June 1967 Hollywood mogul Lew Wasserman and Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson at the President’s Club Dinner. Wasserman was one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, and perhaps its’ first lobbyist. In 1966, he installed Johnson confidante Jack Valenti as head of the Motion Picture Association of America. His influence grew so great, both Johnson and Jimmy Carter offered Wasserman cabinet positions. (LBJ Library photo by Yoichi R. Okamoto.)

Nowadays, celebrities share political panels and campaign stages with candidates regularly. The lines have been blurred. Americans have grown so accustomed to the nexus between Hollywood and politics that they are electing many familiar faces — Singer Sonny Bono and Love Boat purser Fred Grandy became Congressmen, action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger became a two-term governor, and actor Ronald Reagan became a two-term President. How did they do it? When asked by a group of students which experiences best prepared him for the presidency, Reagan once said, “You’d be surprised how much being a good actor pays off.”

The show has an uncanny ability to convince the audience it is watching people as they were then, with no intrusion of modern sensibilities and judgments. The show’s appearance is a gauzy impressionism, which helps create a nostalgic effect. There seems to be less dialogue than most shows. Characters are developed as much through facial reactions to events as with dialogue and plot lines. When watching the show, it feels like 1962, as I nostalgically remember it, even though I never heard of Madison Avenue until years later. Plot lines are about getting and losing clients, and they can be amusing. But plots are primarily designed to create interest in each character.

The characters are subtly drawn, but are still “sharp line bright.” The leading character is “Don Draper” (Emmy winner Jon Hamm), the strong-willed, supremely confident yet flawed head of “Creative” for the midsized firm “Sterling Cooper.” Draper lives an upper middle class suburban life, early ‘60s style, and is married to an ex-model, mid-level socialite named Betty (January Jones). But Don Draper is really “Dick Whitman,” a secret known with certainty by only two people, the real Draper’s wife, who the new Draper financially supports, and weirdly, an aggressive young sales executive at Sterling Cooper, “Pete Campbell” (Vincent Kartheiser).

In flashbacks, we learn the real Draper and Whitman were caught alone in a firefight in the Korean War. After the fight, the real Draper was burned alive, in part because Whitman “pissed his pants,” which crazily triggered a live fire killing Draper. Whitman was raised by accidental adoptive parents, as his real parents died a few years apart, each remarrying. He desperately sought to erase his past, switched “dog tags” with the real Draper and became him. Don Draper becomes a man with no past.

Women in the show could be called stereotypes of the era. While true, that perception misses the mark. Betty kicks Draper out of the house for his serial adultery, for which she has no proof. Women’s’ roles are different, and indeed partially subordinate. But they are not weak.  Sexual harassment was a concept unknown in 1962. In fact, there is constant sexual tension throughout the show between the Mad Men and their secretaries, which all seem to accept. Smoking and drinking during work hours seem required.

The most intriguing character is “Peggy Olsen” (Elizabeth Moss). She is a high school graduate, a secretary, and a confused but believing Catholic from Brooklyn. By second season’s end she is a senior copywriter with creative instincts surpassing the Ivy Leaguers (in importance, if not pay). She asks senior partner Roger Sterling (John Slattery) if she can have a recently vacated large office, as he passes her casually in the halls. He gives it to her. He states in a bemused and condescending fashion, “you modern girls are quite aggressive, I like that. None of these guys had the balls to ask.” In her outwardly quiet, attractive, mousy way, she dominates them intellectually and psychologically.

Olsen is really Draper’s doppelganger. She also tries to erase her past. She “consents” to sex early in Season One to Pete Campbell. She gets pregnant but manages to not notice.  She eventually enters a hospital with stomach pains and delivers a baby she refuses to even look at. Her sister raises it. Her denial leads to temporary insanity in the hospital. Draper, knowing his Doppelganger when he sees her, visits, and mentally forces her to confront reality and “move on.” She moves on.

The show is focused on “inner life.” The characters seem like “prisoners” of background and circumstance. Yet they have free will and the power to transcend circumstances, if existentially aware. We, and they, have limits too. Each person needs to find their way. The show’s two “protagonists,” Draper and Olsen, have morally compromised lives. They realize this. They seek redemption, but are also driven to succeed in work, and these two can conflict. They struggle, and as such, are appealing. Is there an implicit political message in this show, a bias perhaps, a hidden jab at the left, or right? Not that I can see. However, what is not seen may be as interesting or telling.

What is not seen? Government. The Nixon/Kennedy election takes up one episode. They all want Nixon to win, but it is not clear why. Perhaps they expect a more friendly business environment. One Mad Man, who fancies himself an intellectual, marches in Mississippi with his black girlfriend (who then blows him off, amusingly). That’s about it. Government policies and politics simply are absent, accept as it might relate to business. No political correctness or anti-political correctness is visible. Just people living day-to-day, trying to make it. Some have broader imaginations than others. Some are nasty, some are brilliant, some are dopes or comical.

Yet no one is looking to “leaders” for salvation. Refreshing.

I go to bed full of hate and wake up the same.  I hate blacks, Hispanics, gays, women, abortion doctors, liberals, Lefties, Democrats, you name ‘em, I hate ‘em if they’re not like me. I especially hate President Obama for being black. Just ask Janeane Garofalo, although being a Stalinist Socialist doesn’t help Obama’s cause any with me. Fact is, Obama could be a GOP Michael Steele Uncle Tom, and I’d still hate him even more than liberals hate Steele. Skin color trumps all. Thank God I was born the right color, or I’d probably kill myself. Wait, the hoods are dry! Be right back.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Joe is my hero and role model, Archie Bunker a distant second, Ted Nugent a close third. I have posters of all of them lining my walls, alongside such conservative Republican heroes as Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Richard Nixon, Adolf Hitler and Darth Vader.

I used to have one of Robert C. Byrd, but he lost me when he left the Klan and became the Conscience of the Senate. Whatever that means. Didn’t know the Senate had one. But I never understood that. How can a white guy in good conscience leave the Klan? But I digress.

I have a mega-gun collection and a huge stockpile of hollow-point Teflon-coated ammo that’s just itching to be used. Haven’t decided yet on which abortion doctor I’m going to target next. Maybe I’ll just go down to the border and shoot brownskins for sport. dHs, sToP mE BefORe I KilL aGAiN!

And though I really hate homos like the Good Book says I should, I spend a lot of my free time cruising aiport rest rooms and tapping footsies like Larry Craig. If I’m lucky, I’ll get some real teabagging in. If not, I’ll try to get some in at my local Tea Party. Of course, my shotgun wedding Handmaid’s Tale wife with the nice tooth doesn’t know about any of this. She’s usually home watching Jerry Falwell and the “700 Club” most of the day, and role-plays being Sarah Palin for me at night. Is that kinky or what? God, I love my wife! Would never be unfaithful to her with another woman.

As to being with other men, well, nobody in the GOP’s perfect. But it beats being a liberal! Except for the part where they get away with murder, and we get stoned for jaywalking.

Our favorite day is Sunday, named after our favorite radical fire-and-brimstone preacher Billy Sunday. We sing hymns like ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ and wash ourselves clean in the Lord. Really necessary for me. A conservative Republican can get real dirty during the GOP workweek. Good thing my wife’s family is rich. Her toothless redneck dad gave us a beat up ‘78 Ford pickup with NASCAR and confederate flag bumper stickers and an Easy Rider rifle rack. Pride of the Bayou!

I want war. Lots of it. Want the economy to get a boost? Works every time! Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran! Of course, in the interest of disclosure, I must confess to being a consultant for Blackwater, Halliburton, the Carlyle Group and Big Oil. And so what if we all staged 9/11? Made a ton of dough and dusted enough Islamist ragheads to fill the new Yankee Stadium, didn’t we?

Liberals are such pussies! And screw Global Warming! I WANT the world to burn! Only then can Jesus bring Paradise to earth. Speaking of which, where’s that landing strip for Christ in Yosemite National Park James Watt put on order? Days are gettin’ short! And don’t forget, Jesus is white, and might is right. I’m sorry, what was the problem with slavery again?

Actually, I have to confess yet again. All the above is only what I aspire to be, i.e. the best GOPer Repug Nazi I can be. Like most mortals, I fall far short of my goals and dreams. I don’t even own a gun or hollow-point Teflon-coated ammo, but I support the Second Amendment, which is just as bad. May as well be a co-conspirator with Scott Roeder and James von Brunn.

I detest the corrupt Mengele-like genocidal statutory rape-hiding abortion industry that needs reform even more than Iran’s government, but support a woman’s LEGAL right to choose. It’s the law. Until and unless it’s overturned, what can you do? Shoot up clinics? Ya, in my Rethug dreams!

I’m really not a bathroom footsie player, or like cock and hairy ass in general. But gay marriage is legal in my home state of New Hampshire and I haven’t been sodomized yet, so live and let live. What can I say, I’m weak. And even though as a six-year veteran I believe in General Douglas MacArthur’s axiom that “no one hates war more than the soldier,” sometimes they just gotta be fought if civilization as we know it must survive. Be it a cold war with the Russians or hot ones with Hitler and bin Laden, the dirty deeds must be done. And without quarter until victory is complete.

Fight a war to the end or don’t fight it. You can’t do both. One way assures victory, the other defeat. The Art of Fighting Without Fighting doesn’t work with the abu Musab al-Zarqawis of this world.

Worst of all? I was born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Now THAT’S a confession! How can I ever face my conservative redneck Republican sister-banging moonshine-guzzling Zionist drinking buddies at the NRSC and AIPAC again?

I put it all on the table, people. Now, if only liberal Democrat lefties would freely admit to all the world that they’re all hypocritical, mentally disordered, drug-addled, tree-hugging, America-hating, nihilist anarchist recruiting office-bombing, terrorist and dictator-loving, tinfoil hat, limp-wrist pansy spoiled brat full-grown trust fund Stalinist toddlers who couldn’t get gangbanged by the Green Bay Packers hard or fast enough (practice squads included), maybe we’ll get somewhere in this country.

I seek progress, not perfection. We can all sit down together and have one big ideological circle jerk. Get it out of our systems, you know? Hey, we’re all Americans here! Confession is good for the soul. Or your metaphysical, Pagan or Wiccan existential plane of being, depending on your religious or non-religious proclivities and inclinations.

God, I feel so good now. Got it all out. Okay, let’s hear it in the comments section now. No holding back. That includes you, Unrighteous Bubba and Cognitive Dissonant. Tell us about all the kinky things you like to do with tinfoil, Vaseline and vacuum cleaners while watching sick online German porn in your mothers’ basements

To which, I can only add as a side note to the Democratic Party: “Enjoy, he`s all yours.”

Which leads me to my next point: As a fan of Kemp, I`m always on the lookout for someone like him. On tv, I keep seeing Joe the Plumber, a pretty average guy who seems decent – except, you know, he doesn’t want the gays near his kids. Speaking of kids, there`s that Jonathan Krohn tyke on talk shows – reciting the conservative party line better than most dithering white haired weenies crawling the halls of the Capitol. He’s smart, but he weirds me out. Maybe because at 13 he’s already taller than me – or maybe because he just comes off as a novelty act, like a hairless cat reciting the alphabet (which is kinda cool).

Which is why I bring up these guys up – not because I hate them, but because I despise novelty. The left was always the three ring circus of novelty – its microcosm, the Huffington Post, reflected this with children writing blogs, next to the incompetent bomber, the conspiracy freak, and the bearded lady poet. Sometimes it was all the same person.

Now I’m not saying that the plumber or the paperboy don’t belong in the conservative movement. They just shouldn’t be IN FRONT of it. We’ll find our leaders, or hopefully, soon they’ll find us. But it’s not going to be a guy whose middle name is an article, or a boy still sleeping in a twin bed. We don’t, in fact, need anyone who “plays a role.” What’s needed is someone, like Kemp, who was both real, and smart – and not a cartoon.

Unless, of course, it`s a unicorn. Then I take back everything I just said.

Because this theme is both timeless and universal, the story setting in a kind of alt-universe America, circa 1985, where Richard Nixon’s into his fifth term and the Cold War still rages, isn’t a disadvantage. In fact, by removing itself from our world this allows ideas to be explored outside of the purely political. If “Watchmen” has a political point I missed it, and while its dark view of humanity might be unfair it’s a necessary and compelling way to ask and answer the questions of human worth. “Watchmen’s” world may be nihilistic, but the ideas are not.

The Watchmen are a group of disbanded superheroes lost in cynicism and disillusionment. The government they helped to win the war in Vietnam outlawed them and now they live embittered half lives in a world that needs them but doesn’t know it. After one of their own, The Comedian, is brutally murdered in the opening scene, Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), a masked madman with an uncompromising thirst for justice, sets out to find the killer. This puts him in touch with his former teammates – all former superheroes with wildly different skills and costumes.

If there’s a protagonist, it’s Rorschach, who narrates in the language of hard-boil and while he might be a psychotic, he’s our psychotic. His contempt for criminals is only topped by the grisly methods he uses to rid the world of them. And in their own way, each of the Watchmen is deeply flawed. Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), a scientist involved in an accident that gave him god-like power over matter, has become hyper-intellectualized to the point of losing his humanity; Laurie Jupiter aka Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman) is torn between her devotion to Dr. Manhattan and need for her own identity; Dan Dreiberg aka Night Owl (Patrick Wilson) is lost without the group and close to becoming his predecessor – whom he visits regularly – a drunken has-been living in the past. The only one of the group who appears to have moved on is Adrian (Matthew Goode). He’s evolved into a wealthy and esteemed industrialist.

The story’s one big flaw is the lack of a strong, central plotline to carry the first couple hours (the full runtime is 163 minutes).  The first two-thirds jump from character to character, filling in back story and building mythology.  Depending on how interesting the character is, this is a hit and miss approach and during the weaker plotlines, like the budding romance between Laurie and Dan, an episodic feel overwhelms.

But even during the worst of the lulls, the ideas being explored keep the story alive and there is a sense of momentum, at least after the first hour, that all the time spent laying down plot elements and developing the characters will come together. This makes the payoff vital, and pay off it does. The last forty minutes are absolutely brilliant.

Also brilliant is Zack Snyder’s direction.  You don’t have to be familiar with the source material (and I’m not) to understand just how close to camp the whole affair might have become in lesser hands. What holds it together is a firm, confident visionary director who understands that the literate nature of the source material is the key to retaining credibility. At times this approach works against the pacing of the story, but with the costumes and neo-noir elements, if adapted into a straightforward action film, “Watchmen” would go down as another “Flash Gordon“ (1980).

And action is lacking. There’s all kinds of violence, some of it gratuitous and unnecessarily so, but almost no action scenes. The sense of adventure and thrill of being a superhero is not what “Watchmen” is about — not even close.  R-rated for this reason, and due to an explicit sex scene like the kind we frequently saw in films made in 1985, this comic book film is not for kids.

But it is for adults, and if you hang in there through the dark cynicism and a deceptive bent towards nihilism, “Watchmen” has something to say about who we are, who we could be, and what we’re worth —  even at our most worthless.  While not as exciting or lavish as “The Dark Knight,” Snyder’s plumbed just as deep into the rich depths of the human condition to make a very good film, and on a second viewing, which I look forward to, it may just rise to something more.

“Watchmen” works as a dark, post-modern, revisionist middle finger to the icons of our optimistic past. The plot isn’t its strong suit, the characters are what make “Watchmen” an impressive experience. Dr. Manhattan is a being who lost his unique electric field in a lab accident. He didn’t keep his hair, but he kept his blue penis, which is useful in revealing that he’s not Jewish. A Materialist god, Dr. Manhattan is losing his grasp on what it means to be human, even as he gains the ability to see life one molecule at a time.

Other characters are tragic, often mirror images of each other. For instance, Silk Specter II and Night Owl II are children of the previous generation of super-heroes, but while Silk Specter resents her mother pressuring her to follow in her footsteps, Night Owl ignores his father’s plea to not don the mask and cape. Rorschach’s mother can be heard saying she wished she aborted him, while Silk Specter’s mother was raped and said the birth of her daughter was one of reasons why she couldn’t hate the father.

The plot of “Watchmen” is an I-don’t-care-who-done-it. Compared to the humane soap opera of the character’s plight, I didn’t find the mystery of the story nearly as compelling or original. I’ll forgive the long running time because these heroes are developing into more believable types than I see in non-super-hero movies. This is a credit to the source material by Alan Moore, the screen-writers, the director and the cast. All well done.

I like violence.  I don’t like gratuitous suffering depicted on screen. There was an excess of bone-crunching that perhaps most R rated movie goers celebrate, but I don’t feel the need to see it over and over again. I know the world is a shitty place without seeing stories with child murder, rape, arms cut off with a skillsaw, legs broken backwards, etc. It’s one of those instances where seeing blood splatter on a comic page rendered in ink is different than seeing it splattered all over the screen in high definition. I wasn’t bothered by the blood in “300″ so I guess I’m still figuring that one out.

***I’d like to stop for a second and address parents out there. Please, for the love of Mary, quit bringing your four year old daughters and six year old sons to R rated movies. I’d love to think you care enough about your kid to delay your own gratification until the movie comes out on DVD, but maybe you can at least see that the presence of your kids ruin my movie experience. When the guy gets his head bashed in three times with a meat cleaver and your daughter says, “Mommy, what are they doing?” you might want to take them to “Hotel for Dogs.”  It’s legal to expose children to graphic sex and violence, but if I lit up a cigarette, the audience would come unglued about how I was ruining these kids.***

The thing that bugged me most about the movie was the perpetual adolescence of the themes. “Watchmen” is a movie that refuses to grow up. Like the alternate 1986 where it takes place, it’s trapped in a Reagan-hysteria time capsule. The politics of “Watchmen” are the usual tired cliche we get from Hollywood, only now it’s exaggerated to a point of being, well–comic booky. Nixon is the president as crime-fighters formally join the military industrial complex.

“Who will watch the Watchmen?” becomes a catch-phrase for “Who will watch Reagan, Thatcher and Bush?” I guess it slipped past these backward looking paranoids that the Hamas terrorist state of Gaza is funded by Hillary Clinton while Obama justifies the ends of choice protection through the murderous means of abortion expansion around the world. But you won’t find any characters with Carter’s plastic face, just Nixon, hints of Reagan, and plenty of imagery pointing to Bush.

And the biggest cliche of all is the addition of alternative fuels. As I recall, this wasn’t in the graphic novel, which was published in the ’80s. But our nation’s One True Religion is an obsession with a different sort of industrial complex, with a body count in the tens of millions produced by environmentalists and their ends-justify-the-means apocalyptic vision. Is Hollywood aware of any bad guys besides conservatives and is it aware of any catastrophe outside of the non-existent fossil fuel one?

The arrival of the comic book generation all grown up didn’t bring any new wisdom to the table for having survived the journey. Youthful eyes behold the super hero icon as an optimistic ideal, a modern parable that gave us hope, wonder and fantasy added to our morality tales. But the super hero all grown up is sick and void of wisdom. The hero genre hasn’t brought power and light to the concerns of adults but injected our sickness and hang-ups into yet another American icon.

“Watchmen” is a thoughtful movie artfully executed, but in the end, just another dark R rated drag. Glad I saw it, won’t see it again.