Gregg Barrios : Cantinflas 101 in San Antonio

Dia de los Muertos altar honors the memory of Cantinflas at San Antonio retrospective. Photo by Gregg Barrios / The Rag Blog.
Catinflas 101:
Don Mario's silent empire

Known for his 'little tramp' outfit of patched, baggy pants, rope belt, tattered vest, straw hat, and a slim mustache, Cantinflas personified the Mexican 'peladito,' an everyman.

By Gregg Barrios / The Rag Blog / November 5, 2012

SAN ANTONIO -- On a recent afternoon in San Antonio’s Market Square, a German tourist asked one of the vendors for a uniquely Mexican souvenir. After pointing to a plethora of Aztec calendars and rebozos, the vendor produced a ceramic Cantinflas.

“Es muy mexicano, es único,” she said. Behind her, a display shelf held dozens of Cantinflas figures depicting roles that had made the actor famous. A short legend was inscribed below the figure of Cantinflas as a doctor: “I’ll cure you of whatever ails you.” The tone in español is almost picaresque.

The tourist asked if the shopkeeper had statues of other national heroes.

“Solamente Benito Juárez y la virgen de Guadalupe,” she replied.

The German took the Cantinflas.

This year marks the 101st anniversary of the beloved comic’s birth, and appropriately the San Antonio Public Library, KLRN and the San Antonio Public Library Foundation celebrated Latino Heritage Month with a long overdue Cantinflas retrospective. In addition to an exhibit of film posters and photos that span his life and times, local library branches screened the lion’s share of his 50-plus films.

Known for his “little tramp” outfit of patched, baggy pants, rope belt, tattered vest, straw hat, and a slim mustache, Cantinflas personified the Mexican “peladito,” an everyman. His use of convoluted, hilarious wordplay was later aped by Abbott and Costello in their “Who’s on First?” routine, and on TV by Professor Erwin Corey, an Anglo legacy that hints at the impact this Mexican comic genius had on Spanish-speaking audiences around the world.

Film purists still insist that Hollywood’s golden age of comedy ended with the talkies. And although Spanish-speaking audiences enjoyed the slapstick comics of Hollywood, their interest waned as movies began to speak in English. That’s when the Mexican film industry took off.

Its most successful star was Mario Moreno, aka Cantinflas. His slight build was perfect for the screen, and fame came quickly, starting with Está es mi tierra (This is My Country) in 1937. His most famous films dealt with the everyday life of a penniless vagabond, el peladito -- not unlike Chaplin’s Little Tramp-- who wore his pants lower than even today's hip-hop standards might allow.

Both comics had worked in the circus and vaudeville and began their film careers in one-reel comedies. After a Los Angeles screening of Cantinflas’ Ni sangre ni arena (Neither Blood Nor Sand), Chaplin called Cantinflas the best living comic in the world. That film’s daring and hilarious bullfighting sequences are especially impressive because Moreno, an amateur bullfighter, did his own stunts.

But Cantinflas was so much more than a physical comedian. There was a method to the madness of his Spanish-language double entendres and verbal nonsense. He befuddled and jabbed at politicians, diplomats, lawmen, and the wealthy in his films. His brand of humor spread like wildfire, so much so that the Real Academia Española added the verb cantinflear -- to speak in a nonsensical manner -- to the dictionary.

The golden age of Mexican cinema began in 1936 and lasted more than 30 years. Latino families made weekly treks to el cine and a new Cantinflas film was often the reason. San Antonians of a certain age still remember when the small comic occasionally appeared at the Alameda theater along with such stars as Jorge Negrete, María Félix, Gloria Marín, Pedro Infante, Dolores Del Río, Pedro Armendáriz, and Tito Guízar.

By the 1950s the era of great Hollywood comics had faded, but Hollywood came courting the populist and popular Cantinflas. His role as Passepartout, David Niven’s valet in Around the World in 80 Days, remains the one high point in the 1956 Best Picture Oscar-winner. Cantinflas also won a Golden Globe for best motion picture actor in a comedy/musical for his role -- beating out Yul Brynner and Marlon Brando.

But when Hollywood attempted to cash in on Moreno’s newfound fame by casting him in as the lead in 1960‘s Pepe, the film bombed. Jorge Camara, vice president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which sponsors the Golden Globes, says the reason for its failure is simple.

“In Around the World in 80 Days, Cantinflas was able to use his physical comedy, something he didn't do in his followup film, Pepe,” Camara said by email. “His genius and one of his greatest talents was the comic way he used (or misused) the Spanish language to fit his character and his situations. That ability, unfortunately, did not translate into English.”

When I moved to Los Angeles in 1980, many downtown movie palaces were programming Spanish-language films to meet the demand of recently arrived immigrants. The new waves of immigrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua had one thing in common: Cantinflas. Most had grown up watching his comedies. He not only was a first-class film star, but also a cultural hero to his countless fans, especially the working class who identified with el peladito.

Cantinflas lookalike at San Antonio retrospective. Photo by Gregg Barrios / The Rag Blog.
But the end was near. The Mexican film industry was beginning to churn out substandard films filled with gratuitous nudity and blue humor.

Writer Sandra Cisneros has kept a ceramic figure of el peladito in her bathroom for nearly 20 years. “Isn’t it from the street that all fashion and pop culture ultimately comes from?” Cisneros asked.

Every time I see someone walking down the street with their pants falling off, I think, mira, hay va Cantinflas. El peladito was ahead of his time for showing his calzones and dragging his pants down to his hips like hip-hop kids do.

Cantinflas is a cultural icon like la virgen de Guadalupe. You have to have an image of the Virgen and Cantinflas whether or not you’re Catholic or have seen his films. They are omnipresent in Chicano culture and in some ways the antithesis of themselves because each one in a sense is god: the Guadalupe is the compassionate face of god, while Cantinflas is a symbol just like the Virgen of the oppressed. For a few moments, he makes you laugh, and if that isn’t God I don’t know what is

For a mural at the Teatro de los Insurgentes in Mexico City, Diego Rivera painted Cantinflas as a Christ figure with an image of the Virgin on his clothing -- a latterday Juan Diego. The mural drew outrage and was later modified and the Guadalupe removed. Today it depicts Cantinflas taking money from the rich and redistributing it to the poor. In real life, Moreno was a co-founder and president of the Mexican actor’s union, ANDA, and funded La Casa del Actor, a haven for needy film industry workers.

Herbert Siguenza, a founding member of the Chicano performance troupe Culture Clash, considers Cantinflas a muse and a hero. Siguenza wrote a one-man show that pays tribute to Moreno, commissioned by Houston’s Alley Theater. Part biography, part comic sketches, his Cantinflas! illustrates el peladito’s influence on comedy today and introduces the character to a new generation that perhaps only knows the him from the animated children’s Cantinflas Show on Spanish-language TV.

“There is a new generation, a second generation of young Latinos growing up, and these kids don’t know who Cantinflas is,” Siguenza said in a recent phone interview. “They know who Will Smith and Jim Carrey are, but I wanted to show them that we also have a comic hero; we have someone who was as big as Charlie Chaplin. And we should remember that. He was one of the first crossover stars that we had.” Still, Siguenza admits it's a hard sell to English-only audiences. “The verbal antics aren’t transferable. It’s like trying to translate Groucho in Chinese.”

In 1983, on assignment for the Los Angeles Times, I interviewed Don Mario in Mexico City two years after what was to be his final film, El Barrendero (The Street Sweeper), which at the time had made more money at the box office than any other Mexican film. He was still upbeat about his art, and expressed a desire to have el peladito cross the border into California to join César Chávez’s farmworkers and perform with Luis Valdez’s Teatro Campesino.

He spoke of his screen counterpart in the third person:

Cantinflas has changed because he is part of the world, part of the people. We all change. The little guy isn’t the same one from 30 or 40 years ago. He has the same ingenuity, but he is better prepared than he was before to deal with life. He may see the same problems of years ago occur again today, but he sees them from a different perspective. Cantinflas has changed but he still carries the essence of being part of the common people. The clothes he wore before aren’t worn anymore, so he doesn’t wear them, but he’s the same guy underneath. That won’t ever change.

Later, watching his penultimate film, El Patrullero 777 (Patrolman 777), I saw what he meant. His comic style of cantinfleando had morphed into the everyday doublespeak of politicians everywhere. In the film, Moreno portrays a patrolman, but he still sports his signature bigotito, his thin mustache. When his commanding officer asks why he no longer wears his pants low, he retorts: "Todo a subido” (“Everything’s gone up”).

Yet the old Cantinflas, more the social reformer than the social satirist, makes an appearance at the end of the film. In a speech that contains little of el peladito’s double talk, he laments the loss of trust and dignity in public officials in a speech in front of a building named for former Mexican president Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, under whose orders hundreds of university students were killed during the 1968 protests in Mexico City.

Cantinflas then lifts his gloved hand, echoing a moment during the 1968 Summer Olympics -- also held in Mexico City -- when African-American medalists raised clenched fists in a human-rights salute. By that time, I was in tears.

This article was published at Plaza de Armas and was crossposted to The Rag Blog.

[Gregg Barrios is a journalist, playwright, and poet living in San Antonio. Gregg, who wrote for The Rag in Sixties Austin, is on the board of directors of the National Book Critics Circle. Contact Gregg at gregg.barrios@gmail.com. Read more articles by Gregg Barrios on The Rag Blog.]

• A clip from Cantinflas’ 1940 film Ahí está el detalle (There’s the Rub) with English subtitles, can be seen here.

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Paul Krassner : Are Rape Jokes Funny?

Comic Daniel Tosh. Image from The Hollywood Gossip. Inset images below: Sarah Silverman and Louis CK.
Are rape jokes funny?

Rape is a crime. Rape jokes aren’t. They are the risk of free speech.

By Paul Krassner / The Rag Blog / August 30, 2012

Abortion was still illegal in 1970. At the time, as both an underground abortion referral service and a stand-up satirist, I faced an undefined paradox. Irreverence was my only sacred cow, yet I wouldn’t allow victims to become the target of my humor.

There was one particular routine I did that called for a “rape-in” of legislators’ wives in order to impregnate them so that they would then convince their husbands to decriminalize abortion. But my feminist friends objected. I resisted at first, because it was such a well-intentioned joke. And then I reconsidered.

Even in a joke, why should women be assaulted because men made the laws? Legislators' wives were the victims in that joke, but the legislators themselves were the oppressors, and their hypocrisy was really my target. But for me to stop doing that bit of comedy wasn't self-censorship. Rather, it was, I rationalized, a matter of conscious evolution.

* * *

Now, in July 2012, more than four decades later, rape-joking triggered a widespread controversy when a woman who prefers to remain anonymous went to a comedy club, expecting to be entertained. She chose the Laugh Factory in Hollywood because Dane Cook was on the bill, but he was followed by Daniel Tosh, and she had never heard of him.

In an email to her Tumblr blogger friend, she accused Tosh of saying that “rape jokes are always funny, how can a rape joke not be funny, rape jokes are hilarious.” She was so offended that she felt morally compelled to shout, “Actually, rape jokes are never funny!” Tosh paused and then seized the opportunity, responding, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like five guys? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her?”

The audience laughed raucously. After all, isn’t anyone who yells at a comedian practically asking to become an immediate target? But this woman was stunned and humiliated, and she left. In the lobby, she demanded to see the manager, who apologized profusely and gave her free tickets for another night --admitting, however, that she understood if this woman never wanted to return.

In her email, she concluded that, “having to basically flee while Tosh was enthusing about how hilarious it would be if I was gang-raped in that small, claustrophobic room was pretty viscerally terrifying and threatening all the same, even if the actual scenario was unlikely to take place. The suggestion of it is violent enough and was meant to put me in my place.” She added, “Please reblog and spread the word.” And indeed, it went viral.

Coincidentally, on the same night that Tosh, in his signature sarcastic approach to reality, provoked the woman, Sarah Silverman was performing at Foxwords Casino and she touched upon the same taboo subject:

We need more rape jokes. We really do. Needless to say, rape, the most heinous crime imaginable, seems it’s a comic’s dream, though. It’s because it seems when you do rape jokes, that the material is so dangerous and edgy, and the truth is, it’s like the safest area to talk about in comedy ’cause who’s gonna complain about a rape joke? Rape victims? They don’t even report rape. They’re just traditionally not complainers.

Ironically, in The Aristocrats, a documentary entirely about a classic joke of the same name, Silverman complained that she was once raped by show-biz legend Joe Franklin.

* * *

In the fall of 1981, I booked myself for a cross-country tour, from New York to Chicago, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

While I was in New York, a nun was raped. When I got to Chicago, the rapist was also there. He had given himself up to the police. On stage I explained the true reason why: “He heard that the Mafia, in a rush of Christian compassion, put a $25,000 contract out on his life.” That part was true.

“So now I'm asking the Mafia to use their clout to end the war in El Salvador since four nuns were raped and killed there.” They must’ve heard my request. By the time I got to Los Angeles, the Herald-Examiner was reporting that the Mafia was “probably the largest source of arms for the rebels in El Salvador.”

In the spring of 1982, there was a Radical Humor Festival at New York University. That weekend, the festival sponsored an evening of radical comedy. The next day, my performance was analyzed by an unofficial women's caucus. Robin Tyler (“I am not a lesbian comic -- I am a comic who is a lesbian”) served as the spokesperson for their conclusions. What had caused a stir was my reference to the use of turkey basters by single mothers-to-be who were attempting to impregnate themselves by artificial insemination.

Tyler explained to me, “You have to understand, some women still have a hang-up about penetration.”

Well, I must have been suffering from Delayed Punchline Syndrome, because it wasn't until I was on a plane, contemplating the notion that freedom of absurdity transcends gender difference, that I finally did respond, in absentia: “Yeah, but you have to understand, some men still feel threatened by turkey basters.”

* * *

Although Tosh is a consistently unapologetic performer for the sardonic material he exudes on his Comedy Central series -- which features a running theme of rape jokes, even including one about his sister -- for this occasion he decided to go the Twitter route: “All the out of context misquotes aside, I’d like to sincerely apologize.” He also tweeted, “The point I was making before I was heckled is there are awful things in the world but you can still make jokes about them.”

According to Jamie Masada, owner of the Laugh Factory, Tosh asked the audience, “What you guys wanna talk about?” Someone called out “Rape,” and a woman in the audience started screaming, “No, rape is painful, don’t talk about it.” Then, says Masada, “Daniel came in, and he said, ‘Well, it sounds like she’s been raped by five guys’ -- something like that. I didn’t hear properly. It was a comment -- it wasn’t a joke at the expense of this girl.” Masada claims that she sat through the rest of Tosh’s performance, which received a standing ovation, before she complained to the manager.

Fellow comedians defended Tosh with their own tweets. Dane Cook: “If you journey through this life easily offended by other peoples words I think it’s best for everyone if you just kill yourself.” Doug Stanhope: “You’re hilarious. If you ever apologize to a heckler again I will rape you.” Louis C.K.: “your show makes me laugh every time I watch it. And you have pretty eyes” -- except that he wrote it after watching Tosh on TV, but before he learned about the Laugh Factory incident. Nevertheless, he was excoriated and accused of being a “rape apologist.”

But C.K. himself is no stranger to sexual-assault jokes. Onstage, he has said that he’s against rape -- “unless you have a reason, like you wanna fuck someone and they won’t let you, in which case what other option do you have?”

Conversely, on the second episode of his series, Louie, on the FX channel, he reversed such roles. After leaving a bar with an especially aggressive woman, Laurie (played by Melissa Leo), he had inadvertently met earlier, she performs fellatio on him in her pickup truck, then insists that he in turn perform cunnilingus on her. And he refuses.

So, she attacks him physically with unabashed viciousness, mounts him, and he gives in to her demand. In other words, Laurie rapes Louie. No joke. To watch this scene was positively jaw-dropping. It served as a reminder of how often comedians--and their jaded audiences--find prison-rape jokes not only to be funny, but also, as in the case of Jerry Sandusky, an act of delayed justice resulting in laughter that morphs into applause.

Meanwhile, reacting to the Tosh tirade, Julie Burton, president of the Women’s Media Center, stated:

If free speech permits a comedian to suggest a woman in his audience should be gang-raped, then it certainly permits us to object, and to ask what message this sends to survivors or to perpetuators. Tosh’s comment was just one extreme example of pop culture’s dismissive treatment of sexualized violence, which desensitizes audiences to enormous human suffering. Internet outcry is encouraging, but popular media needs to push back too.

And the original blogger posted another message:

My friend and I wanted to thank everyone for there [sic] support and for getting this story out there. We just wanted everyone to know what Daniel Tosh had done and if you didn’t agree then to stop following him. My friend is surprised to have gotten any form of an apology and doesn’t wish to press any further charges against [him].”

What? Press charges? Rape is a crime. Rape jokes aren’t. They are the risk of free speech. The blog concluded, “She does plan on returning to comedy shows in the future, but to see comedians that she’s seen before or to at least look up artists before going to their shows.” Wait till she finds out Dane Cook suggested that she kill herself.

* * *

What’s funny is always subjective but not incapable of alteration. Now, over 40 years since I stopped presenting my concept about a rape-in of legislators’ wives, I have changed my mind about that decision in the process of writing this piece. I sent the first draft around to several friends, and I was particularly touched by a response from Emma Cofod, production manager at my publisher, Counterpoint/Soft Skull Press:

Thank you for sharing this! I truly appreciate your thoughts here. I read about this woman's complaint last week, and the whole event turned my stomach. What Tosh did was personally threatening, which is not OK. But even though I fall neatly into the feminist camp, I think your original joke is hilarious -- within context, and coming from a comedian whose philosophy I identify with. Color me conflicted.

I think that kind of conflict is healthy. And then the other shoe of my epiphany dropped when I saw Louis C.K.’s appearance on The Daily Show. This is what he told Jon Stewart between interruptions:

If this [controversy about Tosh] is like a fight between comedians and bloggers -- hyperbole and garbage comes out of those two places, just uneducated, unfettered -- it’s also a fight between comedians and feminists, because they’re natural enemies, because, stereotypically speaking, feminists can’t take a joke, and on the other side, comedians can’t take criticism. Comedians are big pussies. So to one side you say, "If you don’t like a joke, stay out of the comedy clubs." To the other side you say, "If you don’t like criticism, stop Googling yourself every ten seconds, because nobody’s making you read it." It’s positive. To me, all dialogue is positive. I think you should listen.

If somebody has the opposite feeling from me, I wanna hear it so I can add to mine. I don’t wanna obliterate theirs with mine, that’s how I feel. Now, a lot of people don’t feel that way. For me, any joke about anything bad is great, that’s how I feel. Any joke about rape, a Holocaust, the Mets -- aarrgghh, whatever -- any joke about something bad is a positive thing. But now I’ve read some blogs during this whole that made me enlightened at things I didn’t know. This woman said how rape is something that polices women’s lives, they have a narrow corridor, they can’t go out late, they can’t go to certain neighborhoods, they can’t dress a certain way, because they might -- I never -- that’s part of me now that wasn’t before, and I can still enjoy the rape jokes.

But this is also about men and women, because a lot of people are trading blogs with each other, couples are fighting about Daniel Tosh and rape jokes -- that’s what I’ve been reading in blogs -- but they’re both making a classic gender mistake, because the women are saying, "Here’s how I feel about this," but they’re also saying, "My feelings should be everyone’s primary concern." Now the men are making this mistake, they’re saying, "Your feelings don’t matter, your feelings are wrong and your feelings are stupid." If you’ve ever lived with a woman, you can’t step in shit worse than that, than to tell a woman that her feelings don’t matter. So, to the men I say, "Listen to what the women are saying about this." To the women I say, “Now that we heard you, shut the fuck up for a minute, and let’s all get back together and kill the Jews." That’s all I have to say about it.

The audience laughed and applauded, as they did 50 years ago when Lenny Bruce ended a riff on prejudice: “Randy, it won’t matter any more even if you are colored and I’m Jewish, and even if Fritz is Japanese, and Wong is Greek, because then we’re all gonna stick together -- and beat up the Polacks.”

My notion of a rape-in of legislators’ wives in order to impregnate them was no more to be taken literally than C.K.’s killing the Jews or Lenny’s beating up the Polacks. Rape-in was a misunderstood metaphor; a pro-choice parable that, unfortunately, has become timely again.

[Paul Krassner edited The Realist, America's premier satirical rag, was an original Yippie, and has been a stand-up comic. Krassner publishes the infamous Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster. Two of his books -- both are expanded and updated editions -- have recently been released: a collection, Pot Stories for the Soul; and his autobiography, Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in the Counterculture. All three of those items are available at paulkrassner.com. The above article originally appeared on Reason.com. Read more articles by Paul Krassner on The Rag Blog.]

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Ed Felien : Jon Stewart, Meet George W. Bush

In defense of the Left,
with love to Jon Stewart

In trying to appear a moderate, Stewart criticized the right for its attacks on Obama and the left for accusing Bush of being a war criminal and comparing him to Hitler.

By Ed Felien / The Rag Blog / October 5, 2010

In a stroke of comedic genius Jon Stewart has called for a "Rally for Sanity" to "Take it down a notch" at the Washington Monument on October 30.

It's part an answer to Glen Beck’s rally to Restore Honor and part Rock the Vote to motivate his younger demographic to get out and vote on November 2. Stewart is portraying the rally and himself as an island of sanity in an insane season when Obama is seen by the Right as a Kenyan Mau-Mau anti-colonialist, socialist, Muslim hell-bent on America’s destruction.

One of the suggested signs for demonstrators at Stewart’s rally would be, "I Disagree With You, But I'm Pretty Sure You're Not Hitler."

In trying to appear a moderate, Stewart criticized the right for its attacks on Obama and the left for accusing Bush of being a war criminal and comparing him to Hitler.

Are there parallels between Hitler and Bush? Is Bush a war criminal?

There are parallels in American history, but the scope and intensity of the repression that Bush initiated and justified by 9/11 went further than any previous President in wartime.

He did not just suspend the right of habeas corpus, the right to a fair trial, and the right to confront your accusers, he kidnapped U. S. citizens and foreign nationals off the streets and locked them up in concentration camps and subjected them to torture. The difference between Bush and Hitler in this is quantitative not qualitative; that is, they both did it but Hitler did a lot more of it.

They both ruled by terror. Bush modeled his government on George Orwell's 1984: War is Peace; the war on terror was really a war OF terror; The Department of Homeland Security (with its permanent orange level of terror alert) created insecurity.

Bush spied on citizens and wiretapped their phones without any legal or ethical justification. He asserted a doctrine of preemptive war that meant he could attack anyone or any country that he felt might become a threat to U. S. vital interests. He declared that his administration was not bound by international law or treaties.

If someone in the government disagreed with him, their careers were destroyed; former Ambassador Joseph Wilson wrote an op-ed piece for The New York Times that pointed out the lies in the State of the Union Address that were used to justify the invasion of Iraq, and Bush officials ended his wife's career as a CIA analyst. Dissent is the lifeblood of democracy and Bush crushed it.

The Nazi Party in Germany was a variant of the European fascist movement. Benito Mussolini was the first successful fascist leader. He led his Black Shirts in a march on Rome in 1922 that changed Italian politics. In an act of sincere flattery, Hitler imitated it by staging an unsuccessful beer hall putsch in Munich the following year.

Mussolini said, "Corporato il stati." The corporation is the state. Hitler believed capitalists should be "masters in their own house." Bush has taken fascism a step further. Mussolini and Hitler merely supported big business while they were pursuing other national objectives, but Bush allowed his family business to direct government policy. In his case, the corporation really did become the state.

The Bush family fortune for four generations has been tied to the business of war. Ever since Great Grandfather Sam Bush sat on Wilson's War Industries Board in World War I and made parts for Remington revolvers, the Bush family has benefited from war.

Sam's son Prescott wanted to make serious money when he graduated from Yale, so he and some of his buddies went to work for Brown Brothers Harriman. Peace had broken out in the 1920s, and the only hope for war profiteers was in the re-arming of Germany (in violation of the Versailles Treaty).

He became Manager of the Union Banking Corporation to trade with Nazi financier Fritz Thyssen. They sold bonds to help finance the re-arming of Germany. They bought a steamship line to ship Remington arms to Germany through a dummy corporation in Holland. He also managed a Silesian coal field that used slave labor from the neighboring Auschwitz Concentration Camp. According to Dutch intelligence sources he took direct management of some of the slave labor camps in Poland to aid Nazi armament industries.

Prescott Bush continued working for these interests for almost a year after the U. S. had declared war on Germany. It was not until October of 1942, when the U. S. seized the assets of Union Bank, the steamship line, the Seamless Steel Equipment (suppliers of steel, wire and explosives to the Nazis) and the Silesian-American Company (the coal mining company), that Prescott stopped supplying the Nazi war machine. Of course, at that point he switched sides and started supplying the Allies.

In 1929 Harriman & Company bought Dresser Industries (manufacturers of oil pipeline equipment) and Prescott Bush became a Director. He continued to run Dresser Industries from the board for the rest of his life. His son, George H. W. Bush, went to work there after graduating from Yale. Dresser was quite successful in selling oil pipeline and drilling equipment. It had a virtual worldwide monopoly. The oil drilling equipment in Iraq belonged to Dresser (through their French subsidiary) in violation of U. N. and U. S. sanctions.

Using lies and distortions, George W. Bush used the tragedy of 9/11 to justify invading Iraq. He wanted control of the oil for his family business. Dick Cheney has always been the chief thug and frontman for the Bush family. When H. W. George was President, Cheney was Secretary of Defense. When Bush lost, Cheney became CEO of Halliburton.

While CEO he bought Dresser Industries from the Bush family (the details were worked out on a hunting trip) for $8 billion. No cash changed hands and Halliburton was only worth $8 billion at the time, so the Bush family must own controlling interest in Halliburton.

When George W. Bush became President he made Cheney his vice president, and with old family friend Rumsfeld as secretary of defense, they were able to steer multi-billion-dollar no-bid contracts to Halliburton. With the U. S. and Bush in control of the Iraq government, they were able to steal 25 percent of the world's known oil resources for the family business.

When George W. Bush was President and head of the family business, we had the perfect merger of state and corporation, the final stage of fascism only dreamt of by Mussolini.

Was Bush a fascist? Was he a Nazi?

Certainly grandfather Prescott was an active and effective collaborator with the Nazis. But it wasn't just the money. Prescott and his father-in-law, George Walker (for whom George I and George II are middle-named), sponsored the Third International Congress of Eugenics on Long Island in the early 1930s, and many of the proposals about forced sterilization and elimination of the feebleminded that were discussed at the conference were later implemented by Nazi Germany.

But is it fair that the sins of the grandfather should be visited upon the children? No. Even if he carries the name(s), even if he inherits the family business and fortune, even if he inherits the political base of fascist elements that were driven from Europe at the end of World War II and became the virulent anti-Communist wing of the Republican Party, he still deserves to be judged on his own actions.

Did he repudiate his family's past connections to Nazi Germany? No.

Did he suppress civil liberties? Yes.

Did he rule by terror? Yes.

Did he embark on total war? Yes.

Did he allow his family business interests to direct government policy? Yes.

Finally, the shelling of Fallujah, the brutal murder of defenseless Iraqi civilians, has as its only parallel the Nazi atrocities at Guernica and Lidice.

Was Bush a Nazi?

We can be certain that history will judge Bush to have been corrupt, arrogant, dictatorial, and brutal. Whether the atrocities he committed place him in the same rank as Hitler is a judgment for later generations, but we would be blind not to see that he is in the same group.

He stands indicted as a petty tyrant, a small fascist who ran the biggest superpower the world had ever seen. The damage he did to the rule of law, to the public treasury, to the national character at home and the horror and suffering he inflicted on innocent people abroad are crimes against humanity. To remain silent is to be an accomplice.

Jon Stewart has a powerful and eloquent voice and a genius for a comedic irony. He could benefit from reading history a little more closely.

[Ed Felien is publisher and editor of Southside Pride, a South Minneapolis monthly.]

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Paul Krassner : In Praise of Indecency

Paul Krassner depicted in Oui Magazine advertisement for an upcoming October 1975 interview. Graffiti includes references to the Realist mascot, Lenny Bruce, and Jerry Rubin. Image from the Realist Archive Project.
In praise of indecency:
Paul Krassner is our 'Satirist-Laureate'

By Harvey Wasserman / The Rag Blog / November 24, 2009

It’s time our national government at last enshrines its most critical artistic need, that of “Satirist-Laureate.” The first nod must go to the man who has pioneered the idiom in modern America -- Paul Krassner.

Since the days of Lenny Bruce, Krassner (a good friend, but no relation) has been poking brilliant fun at every sacred horse’s ass in American politics and culture.

He also remains our cutting edge critic on censorship and its pornographic twin. His two recent books slash to the core of the utter hypocrisy of the government sticking its nose in what we read and write, think and smoke.

Krassner is the godfather of The Realist, the longest running periodical purely devoted to pushing the limits of what may and may not be rendered into print in this country. His infamously horrific description of what Lyndon Johnson may or may not have done to John F. Kennedy’s corpse remains the unsurpassed definition of bad taste and over-the-top satire. The fact that there are still those who believe it to be a true literal description of what actually transpired remains the ultimate monument to both credulity and the lingering effects of illicit psychotropics.

The Realist’s publication of the now-iconic Wallace Wood centerfold portraying our previously iconic Disney characters engaged in various obscene acts also crossed the line between legend and libel. Don’t these characters have lawyers?

When he folded The Realist a few years ago, Paul exhibited a typically Oprahtic (no relation) sense of good timing, quitting while he was well ahead to concentrate on books and performance art. Paul's autobiography, soon to be reissued for Kindle, reminds us that he coined the term "Yippie!" to describe the thousands of young cultural and political radicals who would descend on Chicago for the 1968 Democratic Convention. In the ensuing conspiracy trial, he was the only witness (that we know of) who testified while under the influence of LSD.

The Realist, Issue Number 41, June 1963.
Krassner’s true genius has been to remain current, relevant and cutting. In his various CDs (“The Zen Bastard Rides Again,” etc.), especially good for playing while driving long distances, he is laugh-out-loud funny. Paul's friendly, low-key delivery style belie an inner mensch SCREAMING at official uptightness.

His more recent In Praise of Indecency and Who's to Say What's Obscene? are packed with insane anecdotes, including the devastating tale of the totalitarian censorship that destroyed Lenny Bruce. Those would be gut-wrenchingly funny if they weren’t so tragic in their outcome. Today, of course -- except for his extraordinary brilliance -- what Bruce said and how he said it would be considered mild in your average nightclub.

But after all these years nobody beats Paul’s unerring instinct for irony and the absurd. Krassner's beat goes from cops fighting each other to cover the sex censorship beat, to drug laws that uniformly imprison the innocent to gays in Congress oppressing gays who aren’t. When speaking in public he will "flap his wings." If he doesn't fly, he knows he's not dreaming.

When you read Paul's books, crazy as they seem to be, you need to recall your inner Yogi Berra, who reminds you it's all true because “you can’t make this stuff up.”

Paul Krassner put the "class" in iconoclast, the "mensch" in the unmentionable. Read Paul's stuff as soon as you can, while there's still time to laugh.

[Harvey Wasserman's History of the U.S. is also true, and appears at www.harveywasserman.com with “Thomas Paine’s” Passions of the Potsmoking Patriots, which may or may not be.]

The Rag Blog

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Girls Night Out : Cyndi Lauper and Rosie O'Donnell Celebrate Life

The Girls Night Out promo poster -- and ticket stub. Photo by Thomas Good / NLN / The Rag Blog.
Cyndi Lauper and Rosie O'Donnell:
Terrific show for a great cause

Although 'Girls Just Want to Have Fun' is the most famous Lauper anthem, her current show is about more than the desire to live joyously. The Girls Night Out tour is asking fans to donate food to local social service organizations that feed the hungry.

By Thomas Good / The Rag Blog / August 8 2009

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — At times it felt as though the audience was sitting in Cyndi’s living room — the banter went well beyond the usual perfunctory exchanges between rock star and fans.

The event was billed as “Girl’s Night Out” and featured a half hour of comedian Rosie O’Donnell’s standup followed by almost two hours of Lauper’s greatest hits. “Out of a possible five apples” -- this reviewer gives Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Night Out” tour the Big Apple. It’s hers to begin with -- and on Wednesday night she stole the heart of every New Yorker in the joint.


Two years ago I began attending metal concerts as an exercise in father-son solidarity. I wanted to spend time with my newly minted teenager doing things HE wanted to do. Along the way I learned a thing or two. I discovered that my son had quietly learned how to critique art and had developed a keen interest in experimental music. Gaining self confidence, my son told me, “Forget about punk, the real experimentation is going on in metal — and there are hybrids out there too, ‘metalcore’ bands that have the best of both genres.” He’s right: bands like Between The Buried And Me prove this. However, some of the original experimentation that characterized punk continues, even though the music industry does not promote it.

One of the original experimenters signed under the punk umbrella — who is still producing great music — is Cyndi Lauper. The unusual girl from Queens, known as a champion of human rights and hero of the LGBT community, has a stunning four octave range and a unique vocal style. But what is truly special about her is that she embodies something that appeals to the kid in all of us: her very existence is a celebration of life. And even more remarkable, if not particularly surprising, is that this appeal is not limited to adults who want more from life than Blackberries, hopeless wars and sub-prime economic disasters. Lauper appeals to kids too. I know this because Wednesday night I attended a show in solidarity with another of my children. My 7-year-daughter is a Cyndi Lauper fanatic and has been for years, dating back to when she pronounced Lauper, “Locker”.


Lauper and O’Donnell’s “Girls Night Out” took place in Staten Island’s premiere venue, the St. George Theater, where the finale of the 2003 Jack Black film “School of Rock” was filmed. The St. George, with its explosion of Spanish and Italian Baroque styles, high ceiling and unobstructed view of the stage, was the perfect setting for the colorful Cyndi — and her friend Rosie. Completing the picture was the audience — devoted fans, a number of whom I recognized from covering LGBT Pride parades.

Rosie O’Donnell, Lauper’s friend and collaborator on the current tour, opened the show. Her standup — my first experience with seeing it performed live — was entertaining and she is clearly in command of the art form. She discussed being lesbian, being a mother and going through menopause. She also got in a few digs at Donald Trump — and Elisabeth Hasselbeck, the ultra-conservative co-host of The View who cat fought O’Donnell during the time they both worked the show. O’Donnell’s comedy, coarse at times but chock full of endearing personal anecdotes, resonated with the crowd.

O’Donnell, who took a short break after her performance, returned to introduce Lauper — and sang backup on a few songs before departing a second time.

“They were throwing rocks at me because my clothes were funny. It just goes to show. And let’s face it, in the Eighties I got my revenge.” — Cyndi Lauper describing her childhood to fans at the St. George.

Clad in sheer black stockings, a short black waistcoat and topped off with a platinum perm, Lauper looked the part of the “weirdo artist”. That’s how the mother of an 11-year-old son defines herself, and performing live she’s nothing if not high definition. During Wednesday’s show, roadies struggled to keep up with the 56-year-old Lauper as she moved from playing her trademark dulcimer to dancing across the stage in her familiar frantic-but-very-chic style. Several times she ventured into the audience to dance with her fans, at one point climbing up on a chair and waving at fans in the balcony.

It wasn’t long before Cyndi tossed her shoes backstage so she could dance barefoot. And once she started dancing, she never looked back.

Rosie O'Donnell and Cyndi Lauper: Girls Night Out.
Although “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” is the most famous Lauper anthem, her current show is about more than the desire to live joyously. The Girls Night Out tour is asking fans to donate food to local social service organizations that feed the hungry. The beneficiary of Lauper’s Staten Island appearance was Project Hospitality, a North Shore homeless shelter led by longtime human rights activist Reverend Terry Troia. Lauper mentioned Project Hospitality several times during her show, thanking the organization and urging people to support its work.

“Let’s have a good time and have each other’s backs,” Lauper said.

The theme of having each other’s back, and the importance of family and friends punctuated the show.

Locating a relative in the audience — Lauper’s family is spread across Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island — Cyndi struck up a conversation with her cousin “Joey”, asking about the photo of her greatgrandmother he had sent her and getting details about her “Aunt Tilly”. As a fascinated audience looked on.

“Joey is my cousin, he’s here, where are ya? Right there? I was dancing with you! Anyway, I got the picture…” — Cyndi Lauper, whose performance in Staten Island included an impromptu family reunion.

When a member of the audience began yelling “shut up and sing”, Lauper shouted back, “Shut the fuck up!”, which prompted cheers from a crowd grateful for the opportunity to see a star be herself. With tongue firmly in cheek, Lauper scolded the anxious audience member and then belted out another danceable tune, “Into The Nightlife”. The track is from her most recent CD, “Bring Ya To The Brink”, which was nominated for a grammy in December.

A touching moment, and there were several, came when Lauper described how she came to write the song “Sally’s Pigeons” — from the underrated fourth album, “Hat Full of Stars”, which included tracks that dealt with homophobia, spousal abuse, racism and abortion.

“There’s a place where my family came, to get a leg up, because they came out of the cold-water flats on Marcy Street. The buildings they tore down to build the projects they tore down. But this inspired me to write these songs about these times,” said Lauper.

Lauper had not rehearsed the song. But in response to a request from the audience, she sang it — a capella. Losing her place once, she stopped and started again. No one seemed to mind. At least for one evening, we were all family.

Speaking of family, my own provided the most telling critique of the show: my seven-year-old sang harmony vocals on quite a few songs — and stood up in her seat for most of the evening. So she could dance with Cyndi.

The comprehensive “Girls Night Out” setlist featured Lauper’s biggest hits: “Change Of Heart”, “When You Were Mine”, “She Bop”, “All Through The Night”, “Time After Time”, “Into The Nightlife”, “Money Changes Everything”, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”, and “True Colors”; as well as songs from “Blue Angel”, Lauper’s first band, and an impressive rendition of Joni Mitchell’s “Carey”. The fact that Lauper performs her hits endears her to her fans and is refreshing. As someone who has seen many shows over the last 35 years, I weary of performers who refuse to play the songs that made their careers. While it is understandable that playing the same song thousands of times is tedious, there is something very appealing about a performer who draws inspiration from the energy of the fans, fans who get very fired up when they hear songs that served as soundtracks to their lives.

And the biggest hits came last, capping a brilliant performance.

Returning to the stage to join her friend “Cyn” for an encore performance of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”, O’Donnell banged on cymbals and a pair of snare drums. She not only pulled it off but played well, adding dramatic emphasis to Lauper’s already dramatic signature song.

During the final encore, a haunting rendition of “True Colors”, Lauper raised her fist and said, “Power to the People”, telling the audience to never forget that “it’s We The People…For the People…” I couldn’t agree more. Lauper is the People’s performer and this tour is Citizen Cyndi at her best.

And as Lauper commented on People Power — behind her was O’Donnell, saying, “Amen, Sister”, and flashing the peace sign to the audience.

Amen, indeed.

[Thomas Good is editor of Next Left Notes, where this article also appears.]

The Rag Blog

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Andy Borowitz : Change we can Actually Understand!

William Buckley Syndrome? Barack Obama, interviewed by Steve Krofft on 60 Minutes, spoke in complete sentences and the show still scored record ratings. Go figure.

Stunning Break with Last Eight Years:
Obama’s Use of Complete Sentences Stirs Controversy
By Andy Borowitz / November 18, 2008

In the first two weeks since the election, President-elect Barack Obama has broken with a tradition established over the past eight years through his controversial use of complete sentences, political observers say.

Millions of Americans who watched Mr. Obama's appearance on CBS' "Sixty Minutes" on Sunday witnessed the president-elect's unorthodox verbal tick, which had Mr. Obama employing grammatically correct sentences virtually every time he opened his mouth.

But Mr. Obama's decision to use complete sentences in his public pronouncements carries with it certain risks, since after the last eight years many Americans may find his odd speaking style jarring.

According to presidential historian Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota, some Americans might find it "alienating" to have a President who speaks English as if it were his first language.

"Every time Obama opens his mouth, his subjects and verbs are in agreement," says Mr. Logsdon. "If he keeps it up, he is running the risk of sounding like an elitist."

The historian said that if Mr. Obama insists on using complete sentences in his speeches, the public may find itself saying, "Okay, subject, predicate, subject predicate - we get it, stop showing off."

The President-elect's stubborn insistence on using complete sentences has already attracted a rebuke from one of his harshest critics, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.

"Talking with complete sentences there and also too talking in a way that ordinary Americans like Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder can't really do there, I think needing to do that isn't tapping into what Americans are needing also," she said.

Source / Borowitz Report

Thanks to Steve Russell / The Rag Blog

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