ME!

No idea where this originated, but it’s been floating around my Facebook feed over the last twelve hours. Note – according to reader Henri, it looks like it originated from Fark.com.

Other notes:

• I didn’t feel a thing because of something about the building I work in and SCIENCE.
• Toby Keith has already written a song where he beats up Earthquakes.
• Some buildings were evacuated, but many office workers claimed to have felt their building Sway (from MTV News?) and left out of concern for their own safety. Thankfully, most were state workers, so productivity didn’t take a hit.
• Some legislators and their staffers left work due to concerns about surrounding gas mains and hit the bars. Some say because they’re a fun loving bunch, but I like to think the Earthquake shook them in the moral sense, reminding them of the ethical compromises they made to become Kings of S*** Mountain.
• My mother felt it down in Virginia. She’s fine.
• Please use this time to donate to the Special Olympics of NY. Donate to Megan and she’ll make you cookies, cupcakes, and/or an assortment of other goodies. Donate to Phil and he’ll do tons of stuff…including WRITING A SONG ABOUT YOU for a mere $25 donation.

Upskirt shot, North Hall of EMPAC

EMPAC has released its schedule for the Fall of 2011. Check it out here.

Some of the things  that popped out to me:

• Guy Maddin: Tales from the Gimli Hospital: Reframed (Thursday September 1, 7:30 PM) features members of Sigur Ros.
• Four Tet + Jon Hopkins (Thursday September 15, 8:00 PM) Hopkins collaborated with singer-songwriter King Creosote on “Diamond Mine” which is my pick so far for album of the year and one of the most gorgeous records I have ever heard.
• Phantom Limb: 69°S.: The Shackleton Project (Friday September 23 & Saturday September 24, 8:00 PM) What can I say? I love puppetry.
• Francis and the Lights: White Room (Friday October 28 & Saturday October 29, 8:30 PM) Rare performance by the acclaimed pianist and songwriter.
• The Eternal Return: Terry Gilliam’s “12 Monkeys” (Thursday November 17, 7:30 PM) If you haven’t seen a film yet on EMPAC’s Theater screen: let me just tell you that they showed “2001” last year and it was transcendent.

Best year yet? Possible.

"Oh my Gosh, it's Dick Clark!"

Myself and two others on my team are looking to rappel off the Crowne Plaza Hotel in support of the Special Olympics of New York! Have you donated yet to our cause? Your donation can get you baked goods, a portrait drawn by yours truly, and much more. Plus, you’re automatically entered to win a $25 Target gift card! Give a little, get a little. Click here for more info.

—————–

On the heels of the news that ABC’s new show “Pan Am” will not feature smoking but will feature a black stewardess despite the fact that they didn’t hire minorities until years later, I’ve uncovered the plot summaries for the first ten episodes of the upcoming season.

EPISODE 1: “Pilot(s)”
The crew is assembled and meets for the first time. After a rowdy all-hours party that explodes in conflicts, they’ll have to put their differences aside to get as many pillows out as possible on the overnight to Portland.

EPISODE 2: “Hiring Freeze”
The crew adds a black stewardess to their ranks. After one customer asks not to be served by her, she shrinks and walks away. A defiant Christina Ricci then gives a grand and stirring speech that changes the hearts and minds of everyone on the plane.

EPISODE 3: “Pan Slam”
The crew meets their toughest customers yet…the men of the WWWF! Guest starring HHH as WWWF champion Buddy Rogers and Ric Flair as himself.

EPISODE 4: “Civil Flight Movements”
The crew meets Martin Luther King, Jr. and wows him with their professionalism. “I have a dream,” he says, “and even then it wasn’t as good as the service I got on this flight!”

EPISODE 5: “Long Way Down”
The crew meets their newest addition, pilot Huey Long. After a rough start, he saves the plane from crashing. His co-pilot, future President George H.W. Bush, puts aside his differences with Long and says “know what, kid? You’re okay.”

EPISODE 6: “She Loves Pan Am, Yeah Yeah”
The girls play Little Richard records for two charming lads for Liverpool and inspire them to form a band.

EPISODE 7: “Bay of Pigs”
The crew, while on a non-stop flight from Miami to Rio, intercepts a radio transmission from the US military. The pilots fly into Cuban airspace, confusing the Soviet radar and thwarting a missile attack, allowing for a peaceful end to the Cuban missile crisis.

EPISODE 8: “Pan American Bandstand”
Dick Clark, recreated with CGI, arrives and tries to woo the girls onto “American Bandstand.” They ponder the possibility, but then decide that their devotion first is to Pan Am. Dick is disappointed but understands, because Pan Am is such a wonderful and progressive and empowering company.

EPISODE 9: “Red Eye”
The crew investigates a murder on the plane and works to uncover the culprit, a KGB spy masquerading as a refugee, with the help of some very special passengers…The Harlem Globetrotters!

EPISODE 10: “X Marks the Spot”
Just to prove that pesky Malcolm X wrong, the crew lands their plane on Plymouth Rock while reflecting on the events of the first 10 episodes.

Now departing for a fantasy world of 1963 that didn't exist: ABC's "Pan Am"

Myself and two others on my team are looking to rappel off the Crowne Plaza Hotel in support of the Special Olympics of New York! Have you donated yet to our cause? Your donation can get you baked goods, a portrait drawn by yours truly, and much more. Plus, you’re automatically entered to win a $25 Target gift card! Give a little, get a little. Click here for more info.

—————–

ABC has a new series debuting this Fall called “Pan Am.” It’s set in 1963 and explores the lives, trials, and travails of stewardesses working for the now-defunct titular airline company.

Obviously, the hook is that it’s a “Mad Men” for broadcast and featuring the fairer sex. But as an acquaintance brought to my attention on Facebook (and also Google+ for the six people you know that use it), the producers are drawing a fine line at comparisons, particularly when it comes to some of the less than kind elements of early 60s American society portrayed in the AMC drama.

From CNN:

Although the boozehounds of AMC’s show have never seen a cigarette they didn’t want to light, ABC is stamping out smoking for the likes of the show’s key characters, according to Entertainment Weekly.
….
One other tweak producers are going to work into the time period of “Pan Am’s” plot is to add an African-American stewardess to the crew even though the story takes place in 1963 and the first African-American stewardess didn’t receive her job until the mid-’60s, Schlamme said.

(read more from CNN)

I understand the whole smoking thing, even if I disagree with it. The article linked explains that the show will portray characters who smoke: they’ll have cigarettes in their hands, but they won’t be lighting them up on camera. It’s a cheap shortcut, but one that I’m neither surprised nor discouraged by. Broadcast is an old model with old minds and has different rules, both official and unofficial, by which all shows must abide. “Mad Men” can get away with showing the chain-smoking, heavy-drinking office atmosphere on Madison Avenue at the crux of the swinging sixties because it doesn’t have a haircut in a suit asking them to show immediate ramifications lest they face scrutiny from backward-thinking advertisers and Helicopter Parent advocacy groups.

But a black stewardess is just wrong. Why? Because Pan Am wouldn’t allow it.

“Mad Men” strives for authenticity. One of the show’s producers famously removed apples from a scene because they were the modern, plump, genetically modified ones we’ve become accustomed to, and not the smaller ones that you’d find in 1963. However, the obsession over details doesn’t just maintain accuracy of the time period for the sake of semantics or aesthetics. There is a very clear message in there and the behavior of characters and injustice of the period do have consequences, despite the fact that the lifestyle and fashion is celebrated so loudly by those purporting to be fans of the show.

The apples aren’t just about apples. When the white employees or Sterling Cooper enter an elevator or otherwise encounter a black employee, the awkwardness is jarring and intentional. The black elevator operator says nothing, but the shot is framed to put him in the center. The viewer is forced to ride this scene out with little to no dialogue between the characters, giving us a moment to pause and reflect on the inequity of the times. Even the drinking and smoking is shown to have consequences. In particular the show focuses quite a bit on alcoholism, with many subplots and characters facing serious ramifications from excessive drinking. More are coming next season as Roger Sterling, among others, are seeing their personal demons and trespasses catch up to them. Unfortunately, it’s done in an artful and subtle way, so it’s missed by many and doesn’t hit them until it’s too late. Which is the whole point. Anybody who glamorizes or otherwise sees the show as a celebration of the time period either hasn’t been paying attention to the show itself or is completely out of their minds.

“Pan Am,” on the other hand, will simply introduce a black stewardess who wouldn’t get hired by the company in 1963 because they only accepted white stewardesses. At one point, I’m sure they’ll beat people over the head with a message of racial justice by having the stewardess (or more likely one of her heroic white counterparts) put some bigot in his or her place. It’ll be hacky and self-defeating, artistically and culturally speaking. More importantly, it will ring hollow to the viewer and the opportunity to convey an important message about where we were, where we are, and where we’re headed will be lost.

The problem with people who strive to be “politically correct” is that they’re often anything but. Case in point, a television program will debut this Fall that celebrates a bygone era of a hideously racist and culturally destructive airline company that was equal parts a symptom and perpetuator of social injustice. Instead of calling them out on it and pulling the veil behind the revisionist white-washing of American history, they’ll be lauded for something they didn’t do and given credit they don’t deserve.

In short, a shamefully racist company from 1963 will be given a break, because television producers in 2011 don’t want to offend.

They’re crude, but endearing.

So far the portraits alone have raised over $100! Here are some more I’ve done recently:

Nathaniel:

Sean:

The Troy Record’s Siobhan Connally asked me to do one of recently departed family member and companion, Madeline J. Dog:

And you can have one too for just a small $15 donation. GET EXCITED.

For more information on my Stuntraising efforts and the Over the Edge fundraiser as a whole, click here