Mr. Mellencamp Goes To Washington?

So John Mellencamp is considering a run for US Senate--you gotta be kiddin' me, right? Actually I don't care much either way--he certainly could not be any worse than any of the other idiots Indiana has sent to Washington, like Dan Quayle or the empty-suited Evan Bayh. Also, I hail from the state that gifted George Bush to the nation so it's hard for me to criticize (and if you liked George Bush you're really gonna love Rick Perry--coming soon to a White House near you). But let's be clear about one thing: John Mellencamp is a punk.

I remember back in the day when he first started coming out with records. At that time he went by "Li'l Johnny Cougar" or some such non-sense, and I guess he had some minor hits but nothing much to speak of. Then along about 1982 he came out with his first hit album and it was then that I got to observe his punk attitude in full flower.

That was when I was working the graveyard shift at a mental hospital in Austin. After about midnight there was nothing on television except the local broadcast of the PTL Club (with which I soon became quite obsessed). For a while however CBS ran a late night news show called (best I can recall--it's been nearly 30 years and many brain cells ago) "Nightwatch". One night on Nightwatch Li'l Johnny Cougar stopped by for an interview. The interviewer (once again to the best of my recollection) was a really savvy woman journalist named Felicia Jeter.

The interview started well enough, with L'il Johnny Cougar talking about the recent birth of his daughter and how proud he was of her and how he wanted everything in his career to honor his family and his children. Then they showed some of his recent music video "It Hurts So Good". The video showed hot babes in bondage gear dancing around with make-up bruises and lip syncing "It hurts so good."

Li'l Johnny Cougar was understandably proud and puffed himself up like a little toad when showing off his video. Ms. Jeter then asked the question any thinking person watching wanted asked (this was back in the day when journalists still asked thoughtful questions), which went along the lines of: you just talked about how much you honor women, how can you square that with a music video that shows women as sex objects who have been beaten and abused?

Well, Li'l Johnny Cougar didn't like that one bit. He stuck out his lower lip and hemmed and hawed and tried to say that he was sure he didn't know what she was talking about. Ms. Jeter followed up with: would you want your daughter--whom you honor so much--to be portrayed like the women you have portrayed in this video?

Li'l Johnny Cougar got mad! Real mad! He looked off stage and yelled at some personal assistant or something and then stood up and ripped off his mike and stormed away. It was sweet.

Remember, this was back in the day--at the very beginning of the dark age of Reaganism from which we have yet to fully emerge back into the sunlight--when feminism was not a term of derision and a smart journalist (remember what those were?) could call out some wannabe pop idol's idiot misogyny on national television. It was sweet, real sweet, and a nice look into Li'l Johnny Cougar's shallow thought-bereft soul.

Li'l Johnny dropped the "Cougar" from his name and went on to produce multiple albums of vapid "heartland rock". "Heartland rock" means singing paeans to small towns and old cars and Dairy Queen waitresses--stupid shit like that. He sold plenty of albums and is now probably the richest guy in Indiana (nothing like being richer than god to burnish your working class credentials--just ask that other mass marketer faux populism Bruce 'Stumpy' Springsteen).

Of course he also made a name through his efforts to help save family farms through a bunch of geezer Farm Aid concerts. He teamed up with Willie Nelson and some other craggy old white guys to put on little shows and rail against all the terrible things that were happening to farmers.

Let's be frank: the only farmer Willie Nelson or John Mellencamp ever helped was a pot farmer. What happened to Farm Aid? Were family farms really saved due to the actions of some old fart multi-millionaire entertainers? Nah. Family farms are being lost to industrial agriculture for the same reasons that family stores were lost to Walmart or, in the previous century, dry goods stores were lost to the Sears catalogue--economies of scale. But there are still plenty of farmers who make good money because they're smart businessmen and they know better than to get all strung out on credit to the bank just for sake of a new tractor (yes, Baby Fatt is also an expert in agriculture, being the proud owner of two wheat farms, and if you've every considered being a wheat farmer make me a deal because I'd love to be shed of them).

Anyway the message here is that the people of Indiana can elect whomever they want to be senator. If electing Li'l Johnny Cougar Mellencamp-Springsteet will keep the seat in the Democratic column, then so much the better. Just never be deluded into thinking that he's anything but a shallow, smarmy, self-important little oaf who mistakes a massive bank account for wisdom.

But I Thought Mel Gibson Was Dead

Or maybe it was just that he's been dead to me for so long, because it turns out he's still alive and just made another movie. What a waste of space Mel turned out to be. He could go off tomorrow and make the most beautifully realized perfect movie possible and I still wouldn't pay fifteen cents to see it. He's an ugly anti-Semitic piece of trash and deserves nothing less than to have all decent human beings turn their backs on him and refuse to patronize any undertaking to which he attaches himself.

I remember the first time I saw a Mel Gibson movie. It was the early eighties--the beginning of our nation's long descent into the dark abyss of Reaganism--and Road Warrior made its way to Austin. My buddy Vance Langley and I went to see it at the Varsity. That was back in the day when you could still smoke a joint at the Varsity (like I said, it was at the beginning of Reaganism) so we tooted a fat bird and watched in amazement. The movie was a revelation--completely different than anything made in America at that time (and also a wonderful allegory for that fate that awaits us once Reaganism runs its course)--and we were truly amazed.

Next thing I saw with Mel was Gallipoli--another revelation. This guy's pretty cool, I thought. Then I saw the first Lethal Weapon, and was generally okay with it (didn't think the cartoonish violence at the end hung together with the rest of the movie, but a relatively minor quibble--at that point).

But at some point crazy Mel took over the career. Most of his movies began to follow the same general plot: some moral upstanding man is humiliated by evildoers but gets his vengeance in an orgy of sadistic bloodletting. I mean that's Braveheart, and The Patriot, and Ransom, and on and on. It's even, in essence, The Passion Of The Christ (think about it--the whole movie is the first part of a typical Mel movie--the masochistic humiliation--and the vengeance? Well, that's the two millennia of violence done against non-believers, especially the Jews, that followed).

Of course by this time the wheels had come off Mel's buggy. He ultra rightwing version of Catholicism had become well known, along with his various conspiracy theories regarding the pope. He became increasingly bat-shit weird in interviews. And then came the DUI arrest, when a drunken, disinhibited Mel gave full voice to his misogynistic, anti-Semitic rage. From that point on there could be no doubt about Mel's character, and patronizing one of his movies (even if worth seeing) required turning a blind eye to his wretched, hate-filled spirit.

Believe me I understand about the whole "separate the artist from his art" debate. Pablo Picasso was an asshole (but was never called one--see song by Jonathan Richman). Many actors are egomaniacal drunken louts but I still watch them (like that lovable scamp Rip Torn). I was even able to continue reading Heidegger until the late eighties when Farias came out with Heidegger and Nazism, which showed convincingly that Heidegger was not just a Nazi sympathizer, he was a full blown brown-shirted true believer whose philosophy itself is in some ways inherently National Socialistic. I mean I'm willing to go along with bad behavior for a while, but at some point it becomes all too clear that the behavior reflects a flaw of character and spirit so mean, so ugly, so deep and unchangeable, that the person simply has no redeemable qualities.

That's where Mel is with me right now: he's someone from the past, someone dead. Mel Gibson can eat shit, get hepatitis, turn yellow and die, for all I care. He'll never get another nickel of my money, and I wouldn't let him have any of yours either. He's just a mean old man--a boor at a bar--a big bag of suck.