…because I seem to have missed the Los Angeles stop of the “Zappa Plays Zappa” tour, dammit! Not sure how I didn’t hear about this in time, but… argh! And as if having one of my students say in passing, “That was a good show,” wasn’t bad enough, now I get this report from Rich Roesberg of an event I very much would have liked to see:

My son Justin treated me to a concert tonight, Dweezil Zappa playing his late father’s music, appropriately called ZAPPA PLAYS ZAPPA. It was at the House of Blues inside the Showboat Casino. We got there and Justin asked me if someone he saw was ‘that friend of yours’. Sure enough it was my pal Micky, who is one of the heads of security at the HOB. He asked us if we had general admission tickets and, when we admitted that was all we had, he took us upstairs in the private elevator and put us in the preferable balcony area. Comfortable seats plus great view and acoustics.

The band came on promptly at eight. There were eight players, including vocalist/guitarist Ray White, who had played with Frank Zappa. The group jumped into an early FZ tune. Justin and I had the same thought. Were they only going to play the more accessible songs? Nope. They were soon displaying amazing musicianship on complex FZ pieces like Zoot Allures and G-Spot Tornado. Before performing Dupree’s Paradise, Dweezil explained that it involved a lot of improvisation. He also got a pair of audience members to contribute one word each, to be used later in the number. The words were ‘fabulous’ and ‘time’. Each member of the band got to take a solo, all of which were excellent. Then Dweezil announced that he had decided the contributed words were to be used in an improvised story about a school bully. Ray White made up a song concerning the bully, who had a ‘fabulous time’ beating him up. It became perversely suggestive.

There were video screens above the stage. For three songs they showed footage of FZ. In two of them there were audio tracks of FZ’s guitar playing, and on the other his vocal. The band backed up these recorded performances and, in one case, Dweezil played responses to his father’s guitar work. The entire show was very well paced, with vocal selections balanced against longer instrumentals. The elder Zappa’s humor was intact. Dweezil performed his own version of FZ’s technique of ‘conducting’ the band with hand signals. Best of all, the younger Zappa has developed his guitar skills until they compare favorably to his father’s. Except for plenty of noisy drunks in the audience, fueled by the drinks available inside the club, it was a fine two-and-a-half hour performance. Anybody who appreciates FZ’s music should definitely try to catch this concert if it plays anywhere near you.

Zoot allures! Given that Dweezil is famously a valley guy, this has got to be coming back to my neck of the woods. Let’s hope so.

I guess I’m glad that my good friend Doug Hackney had corrective surgery to his eyes. Doug’s always been a visionary, and we wouldn’t want to lose that.

But describing the procedure at length — and including photos of every gruesome up-close eye-scraping and incision, as you can read here if you’re of strong stomach — brought to mind what we in comics fandom call “injury to eye motif.” Here are some sterling examples:

These comics are highly collectible, and I think we can see why: They prey on one of our deepest fears. And although Doug sadly knows little or nothing about comic books, I think he understands the collective subconscious as well as anyone. Why else tease us with a close-up of his visage looking like something straight out of “X, the Man with X-Ray Eyes?” And who could possibly read his story and look at the photos without flinching? No one. Because seeing is believing.

If we’re going to torture people, maybe we should do it with oven-fresh cookies.

Even before I read George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language,” I had the cranky notion that words should mean what they say, and should say what they mean. So you can imagine how I have felt these past few weeks as the nominee for Attorney General has hemmed and hawed over whether or not waterboarding is torture. Let’s see if we can cut through the flim-flam by posing this question: Would he want it done to himself? Or his daughter? I thought not.

The subtext to this embarrassing flimflammery — a sham that subverts our entire meaning as a nation — is that if he agrees that waterboarding is torture, and then becomes Attorney General, then the Justice Department, the CIA, the Administration, and, if we’re lucky, Dick Cheney’s pack of hypocritical gay-attacking family members and friends and business accomplices, will all be sued by people who have been tortured supposedly in the name of each and every one of us reading these words. I don’t want anyone tortured in my name — or in your name — because not only is torture vile, it is ridiculous. If Galileo could be forced to recant and yet the sun continued on its own path, what is the value of threat and torture? So I say, let them sue. Let them all sue. When you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear. When you have done something deserving of retribution, someone should seek recourse. Let them sue and let them win and let’s put an end to this debacle and start to work our way free of our own shame.

In the meantime, should you harbor any doubt about waterboarding, here’s a video for your edification.

Larry King has long prided himself on going into interviews cold. Some of us prefer to, well, know what we’re talking about so as to avoid embarrassing ourselves for posterity. Here’s an example of his style, come a cropper, in an interview with Jerry Seinfeld. (And thank you to newsfromme.com, where I saw this clip.)

In a profile of Ray Bradbury this month in Verdugo Monthly we find this sentence:

Just turned a youthful 87 years, Bradbury continues to pour on the creative steam, most recently publishing a pair of new novellas and receiving the Lifetime Literary Achievement Pulitzer Prize.

The photo, you’ll note, shows Bradbury wheelchair-bound and with a drooped-to-closing left eyelid, looking every bit of 87. If this is “youthful,” then middle age is preschool.

Could the writer have meant youthful in mind or spirit rather than in body? Perhaps, but she doesn’t say that. And given several encounters myself with Mr. Bradbury during the last five years, I don’t think he has aged in a way that one could say has left him young for his age.

I’m glad he’s still with us, and I wish him continued health. But Bradbury is a writer, and for writing to be worth anything, then individual words have to retain their core meaning. And “youthful” he isn’t.

Here’s the sort of thing that really pisses me off about the Los Angeles Times. Today, buried in a single column on page A19, is a story headlined “Rumsfeld memos reveal musings.”

What is the definition of “musing”? American Heritage Dictionary puts it thusly:

mus·ing   adj.   Deep in thought; contemplative.

n.  

1. Contemplation; meditation.
2. A product of contemplation; a thought. “an elegant tapestry of quotations, musings, aphorisms, and autobiographical reflections” (James Atlas).

What, according to this story originally from the Washington Post, were Rumsfeld’s “musings”? They were memos designed to “keep elevating the threat,” “link Iraq to Iran,” and develop “‘bumper sticker statements’ to rally support for an increasingly unpopular war.”

In other words, not musings, not contemplations from an elder statesman. They were the memoranda for propaganda, insidious and dangerous propaganda that brazenly lied about the level of threat to this nation, that brazenly lied about the relative roles of Iraq and Iran, and that ginned up a misguided patriotic fervor in favor of an illicit war.

“The memos, often referred to as ‘snowflakes,’ shed light on Rumsfeld’s brusque management style and on his efforts to address key challenges during his tenure as Pentagon chief.”

Aside from Lee:  I’ll say.

“Spanning from 2002, a year after he took office, to shortly after his resignation following the 2006 congressional elections, a sampling of his trademark missives obtained Wednesday reveals a Defense chief disdainful of media criticism and driven to reshape public opinion of the Iraq war.”

“Disdainful” of media criticism? What media criticism? More like disdainful of the media — and for good reason. No one in power respects anyone or anything as toothless as the mainstream media has been these past endless seven years.

“Rumsfeld produced 20 to 60 snowflakes a day.” … “Under siege in April 2006… Rumsfeld produced a memo after a conference call with military analysts. ‘Talk about Somalia, the Phillippines, etc. Make the American people realize they are surrounded in the world by violent extremists,’ he wrote.”

Page A19. “Musings.”

Twenty years ago today, I married the woman in this photo. It was my best decision ever.

It was also further proof that no matter how hard-fought your struggle to be rational may be, sometimes it’s best to go with your gut. Once I had decided to ask her to marry me I also decided to wait two weeks and say nothing so that I could be sure I was doing the right thing. I still remember what those two weeks felt like: pure hell and raging insecurity at the notion that she’d leave me while I was still secretly mulling it over or just say no once I’d asked. Finally asking her and then hearing her agree brought waves of relief. I’m not exaggerating.

Today is our twentieth wedding anniversary. Twenty years is a long time. Through all the ups and downs of those twenty years one thing that has sustained me is being able to call up those emotions and know that I still have them. (I worry about Valorie’s side of this equation at times, because she has nowhere near the memory power I have.) Another thing that has sustained me is recognizing the values we share, values that I think have resulted in three children we can be proud of, and an abiding love for things like “Doctor Who” and “Black Adder.”

Twenty years. Yes, we got married on Halloween. The invitations, which were mailed mostly unannounced even to our closest friends and relatives, were to a Halloween costume ball “with wedding.” We were theatre people and wanted to do something festive and celebratory and different. Initially our families thought we were heading off on a dangerous lark. I don’t recall her parents being too thrilled by the idea, and my family was positively resistant. As I grew more and more heated over their response, my wise older brother Ray finally said quietly, “Ehhh…. I’ll come in costume.” And that was it. Everyone followed suit. I still owe him for that. About 200 guests followed, all in costume (as well as reporters from three separate newspapers and a television news crew). The bridal party was dressed in 18th century court clothes, the father of the bride was a medieval king, the mother of the bride came as a Hawaiian queen, my father was a clown (and that was his costume), and my mother was a witch (in costume alone). My brother Michael came outfitted as a butler; many of the guests assumed he was waitstaff and ordered him around all night. He was gracious in his compliance. Joe Stafford, who sometimes comments on this blog and who entertains me like no one else, came as a jester and Rich Roesberg, who also comments here, came as Groucho with his wife Ruth in tow as Mae West; in all three cases I felt their inner natures were truly revealed for all to see.

Too many of the people who came to the wedding have either died or faded from our lives, but the wedding itself has had remarkable staying power, as attested to by the three children and the persistent deep well of affection in our marriage. We don’t have enough time together lately, and we don’t have enough time with friends the way we used to. Those are things I’d like to correct before our twenty-first anniversary. I never expected to stay married 20 years. For me the goal was always 50, or more: the furthest limits of what is possible. I’m looking forward to that.

What elements work to scare people to death? (Other than what’s happening to the country.)

• surprise
• inappropriateness
• shock
• exaggeration
• pain and suffering

What elements work for comedy?

• surprise
• inappropriateness
• shock
• exaggeration
• pain and suffering

As Buster Keaton said, “Nothing is funnier than a guy falling down a flight of stairs.” (Or something to that effect.) The line between horror and humor is thin indeed.

I was thinking about this last night as my friend Trey and I made our annual pilgrimage to Knott’s Berry Farm (rechristened every year as “Knott’s Scary Farm”) for the Halloween Haunt, now in its 35th year. Inevitably, my favorite part is the evil clowns. No, I don’t know why. They’re simultaneously hilarious and horrifying, so maybe it’s the double visceral thrill. I especially enjoy being in one of the mazes — preferably a 3D maze like the clown house from two years ago — and getting surprised by one of these twisted bozos jumping out from a blind corner (as perhaps happened to Trey in the photo below, taken in the “Doll Factory” maze).

Here I am, below, in another area of the same maze. I think the idea here is that the doll makers were trying to make a doll of the woman in this case, who unfortunately was still alive. Given that these mazes are mostly dark, with pounding music, strobe lighting, psychedelic effects, and hidden doors and switchbacks for hideously garbed performers to jump out at you from, it’s difficult to muster the concentration needed to make sense of much of this. Perhaps that’s the key to the fun: It’s like reliving all your childhood nightmares and laughing them off.

We’ve gone every year for five years now, I think. I took my wife with me for our anniversary (yes, we were married on Halloween) 12 years ago and she felt too old for it and derided me for my enjoyment; I was all of 33, she was 30. This year I couldn’t help noticing that the average age of attendees does seem to be that of Archie and his pals at Riverdale High, but occasionally I would catch the eye of some other guy in his 40’s and we’d look at each other knowingly. In “Tender is the Night,” Dick Diver’s annual test of his youth was whether or not he could leap over the couch. As for me, I plan to keep going to Knott’s Scary Farm every year until one of the damn clowns actually gives me a heart attack, and then I’ll know I’m finished.

Last week’s New Yorker had a piece on “The Wire,” my candidate for best drama ever on television.

When HBO premiered “Rome,” I asked my son if he’d like to watch it with me. Given the show’s content networks — what the networks call “adult themes,” as well as what everyone calls “extensive nudity” — my wife was initially aghast; she was never a 14-year-old boy, though, and if I had already seen and heard all these things in the 1970’s I was confident he had as well. “Rome” went over big with all of us, my wife falling into line, and when the show was over Lex asked, “What’s next?” because now HBO on Sunday nights had become a ritual of sorts. So he started watching “The Wire” with me in its fourth season.

(And no, he is not watching “Tell Me You Love Me” with me; I do have standards.)

He grew to love “The Wire,” as I have, and in the same way:  initially flat-out confused, but with growing respect. I put the whole series in my Netflix queue, and watching the show straight through in this way has only deepened my appreciation for an intricately woven storyline that seems at the same time to be utterly organic. Every character on the show has layers of shading and history — just like, um, real people.

“The Wire” returns for its fifth and final  season in January. You’ve got just enough time to catch up if you start now. Whether you watch it or not — and given that seemingly no one here in LA has watched it, that means you probably haven’t already seen it either — this New Yorker profile of creator David Simon is worth reading. Simon sounds like someone who got into the newspaper business because he believed in its Camelot mythos; based solely on this profile, I’m not sure he yet realizes that that beatific past never existed.