The other night I saw “Rescue Dawn” and found it, like all the Werner Herzog films I’ve seen, strangely compelling and somewhat badly made.

The film, which concerns the shooting-down of Americanized German pilot Dieter Dengler in Laos prior to the Vietnam War, was previously the subject of a documentary (also by Herzog) called “Little Dieter Needs to Fly.”

The most immediately noticeable aspect of this film is the film stock itself, which is so bad that the movie looks like a 1970’s porno flick. I kept waiting for Johnny Wad to make an appearance. One could argue that this is an attempt by the filmmaker to return us to the period of the film’s setting, but in actuality I suspect “Rescue Dawn” was shot on degraded film left over from other ventures. The effect is jarring, but after a while, your eyes do adjust — eventually, human beings can get used to anything.

There are also the usual lapses in storytelling. Before the action of the movie (our hero getting shot down in Laos), we get all of about 1 minute of his getting his flight gear specially tailored in a way that, later, plays absolutely no relevant role in the movie, and another 1 minute of his watching an Army jungle survival film that also plays no role. (None of the skills demonstrated is ever needed.)

Most disastrously, the ending is very badly considered and feels summoned from a Michael Bay movie I’m glad I missed. Dengler, having now survived the horrors of torture and survival in the jungle, is upon his return hoisted aloft by the crew of his ship and carried around, his arms upthrust in victory. I think I’ve also seen this scene in every single movie about nerdy kids who triumph at summer camp. Its awfulness is maximized by the bad shooting, the bad dialogue, and the utter lack of fresh ideas.

And yet, as is usually the case with Herzog, much of the movie is amazing.

The scenes of torture are inventive and difficult to watch. They ring with truth, especially in the self-evident and very real changes to Christian Bale’s physique. (He lost 80 pounds over time for this role.) So too with the escape of Dengler and his fellow prisoners, a plan that goes all too wrong for what can only be described as very real but very stupidly human reasons: the one prisoner simply doesn’t show up for the shoot-out. (He never gives a good explanation, and that comports with my own findings about people who don’t show up when they’re supposed to.) Bale puts his all into his performance, running barefoot over treacherous terrain, eating wriggling earthworms and even ripping into a live snake with his bare teeth. (It is either absolutely a live snake or this is brilliantly edited — which is not the hallmark of a Herzog movie.) Bale does an excellent job of capturing Dengler’s loopy optimism and blockheadedness. And, finally, the terrible and sad decline of the escapee played by Steve Zahn is a tragedy unfolding before our eyes. Zahn’s performance is harrowing.

I can think of no other director who so perfectly conveys the terrors and chaos hiding behind the beauty of unruly nature. Every scene in a Herzog film carries an implicit threat, whether it’s Klaus Kinski turning from friend to fiend frame by frame in “My Best Fiend,” or the deluded naturalist cavorting with the bears he believes his friends in “Grizzly Man.” It’s the dangerous art that’s most exciting — think Stravinsky, Picasso, the Sex Pistols — and that’s why, although I’m not terribly interested in film, I keep returning to the films of Werner Herzog.
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Now playing: Brian Eno – Here Come The Warm Jets
via FoxyTunes

I don’t care too much about how a corporate service classifies the art and culture I partake of — much of it’s too difficult to classify anyway, so it’s only mildly annoying that someone at iTunes would classify, say, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” by Wilco as “Country” (a classification that no one who had actually listened to the disc would ever make).

Looking at how my iTunes folder is automatically categorized by the system, it would seem that almost everything I listen to is “alternative.” Alternative to what, I don’t know. Frank Zappa is “rock,” and the Brian Wilson version of “Smile” is “pop,” while the Beach Boys versions of the same songs are “rock.” Huh?

But what I really enjoyed — and what propelled this line of thought — was how the system classified the Brian Eno tracks I’m listening to:  “unclassifiable.” That one they got right.

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Now playing: Brian Eno – No One Receiving
via FoxyTunes

If there’s a consistent message I hear from those in the writing profession, it’s that all too often we’re begging for scraps and ought to stand up for ourselves. That’s the message that Gary Garrison puts out from the Dramatists Guild (and, indeed, in his most recent editorial he advised playwrights to “stop kissing ass.”), and that’s what goes on behind the scenes with the writers’ guild, and that was the subject of Frank Miller’s opening comment during the Petco Park screening of “300” during Comicon.

So this piece in Wired magazine caught my attention. It has to do with the WGA strike that informed sources in this town are predicting is coming in the fall. Interestingly, Nancy Miller seems to blame the writers for getting into this situation by being greedy and/or inept in their past negotiations. But most astonishingly, she quotes studio executives and producers (and, therefore, provides their point of view) — but not writers. This, in a piece written by a woman who, based sheerly upon the evidence, is a writer.

I don’t have any personal point of view in this struggle, except to say that the writers are due some participation if the actors and directors and producers are getting participation. That’s a fairness issue.

My primary point of view is that in a piece about writers’ negotiations, writers should be represented. That too is a fairness issue.

My plays fall into three categories:

• Those that are unproduced and better left that way (I have more than a dozen that I don’t like and don’t send out, but for which I still harbor the hope to one day “fix”)
• Those that are unproduced because either they are recent or I wrote them and kind of lost track of them (fewer than 10)
• And those that have been produced.

Last weekend I devoted a day to reviewing about 20 of the latter to submit them for further productions. And here’s what I discovered:

Even though they’re only between five and 15 years old, many of them have become period pieces.

There’s the play that references Johnny Carson’s show. OK, a while ago I updated that to reference Jay Leno. Now Leno is leaving in a few years. I could keep updating that one — or allowing directors to do so — but the play also references another show, popular at the time, that is long-gone and largely forgotten. Understanding that reference isn’t key to understanding the play, but it adds a large undertone throughout.

There are all the plays that seem to revolve directly around newspapers. Yes, I am an inveterate newspaper-reader. Or used to be — even I don’t read it every day any more. These plays for sure have to be staged as period pieces, because the newspaper is in some way crucial to the play and it is vanishing from our culture.

There is the play about the rock band, written before, believe it or not, “dude” became the preferred form of address between males of a certain age. The play also revolves around the Chapman stick, a cutting-edge instrument of, oh, the late 1980’s. And when the band has a fight with the bassist and has trouble finding a new one, the drummer says they have to find one because you can’t have a band with just one guitar and drums — something disproved by a little band known as The White Stripes.

There are many, many more such examples; plays that seemed to me so trapped in the moment of their time that I actually wondered if most of my “back catalog” had any further performance value. I started to understand how the Beach Boys must have felt, watching the British Invasion roll in. But here’s something that clearly I never foresaw:

In one of my plays, an unscrupulous vacuum cleaner salesman dupes a television-addled housefrau into buying a vacuum cleaner at a ridiculous price. I thought of this yesterday as I decided to buy a really good vacuum cleaner once and for all and be done with it. The ridiculous price of such a cleaner in my play? $400. The price of a good vacuum cleaner now? $400.

Here’s a show I wish I could attend (but can’t, due to a prior obligation):  Dweezil Zappa revisiting the catalog of his father, Frank Zappa, in a live performance. Dweezil says he spent a year holed up at home studying his father’s compositions so that he could not only learn the pieces, but also understand them and gain the skill to be able to play them. (Nobody has ever had to say anything like that about, say, the Ramones’ catalog.)

I had several opportunities to see Frank Zappa when I was living near Philadelphia, and never took them. Then of course I never got the chance again because he died. I also didn’t see Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band on that reunion tour of a couple years ago, which I regret. (Once, at the urging of a then-somewhat-friend, I did see a Hall & Oates concert, which I also regret.) I hope that Zappa the younger does this show again or takes it on the road.

Tonight I spent about 40 minutes trying to adjust these sprinklers. No matter how I set them, the head wouldn’t fully rotate. And yes, I tried “lifting the lever” as specified. Then I settled for letting it water an area, then picking it up and sticking it in the ground in a new position. I did this twice before it settled upon me how truly stupid doing that made me feel. Then I said, “Fuck it,” lit a cigar and took the dog for a walk.

Then I came back and did it all over again.

Then I turned it off and went inside and had a drink and told myself I’d fix this in the morning when at least it would be light outside. I refuse to be defeated.

It’s daily tribulations like this that keep me modest. That, and about a hundred other things.

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Now playing: The Beach Boys – With Me Tonight
via FoxyTunes

 Former “Fantastic Four” and “Flash” artist Mike Wieringo died Saturday from a heart attack at age 44.

Evidently, he was in seemingly good health and a vegetarian.

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Now playing: The Beach Boys – Sail On, Sailor
via FoxyTunes

 If you’ve noticed the “now playing” end tags on my posts lately (and sometimes on my emails), they are courtesy of FoxyTunes, a free download for Firefox.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple comes up with something similar for Safari and calls it JukeBox or something. And the Windows version will be called, um, LinksToMusicYouWereListeningTo.

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Now playing: The Beach Boys – Add Some Music To Your Day
via FoxyTunes

 Former teen heartthrob has built a 1/5 scale model of Disneyland in his back yard.

This makes me think of “The Music of Chance,” by Paul Auster, in which a grieving man and his ne’er-do-well partner are forced into indentured servitude and made to build a medieval wall in the back yard of two lottery-winning yokels who, it seems, also have a mini-scale replica of their home town occupying an entire room of their mansion.

Whether or not truth is stranger than fiction, they are certainly on speaking terms.

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Now playing: The Beach Boys – Surf’s Up
via FoxyTunes

Judging from the news coverage, yesterday and today seemed particularly bad for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

First, he was captured on cellphone video shopping at a mall in Encino with his mistress, Mirthala Salinas. That video was promptly sold to TMZ.com, where you can watch it. Theoretically it isn’t that interesting — just a highly recognizable public figure and his girlfriend, until recently a major local news broadcast figure, neither of them apparently smart enough to realize that everyone everywhere now has a cellphone with video capability, and that of course someone would capture them on said video and sell it to a sleazy website, where it would then lead off the local news. My understanding of witness protection is that it works only when one relocates, stops being a public figure, and doesn’t act stupidly. The video is also interesting because of the immediate distance the mayor puts between himself and Salinas as soon as he sees someone pointing a cellphone at him; I understand the impulse, but it’s already too late. (And actually, if he’d had better impulse control perhaps he wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.)

Secondly, we were then treated on the evening news to newswoman Ana Garcia’s ongoing pursuit of Antonio at City Hall to release some sort of papers or others, papers that evidently James Hahn had released when he was mayor. If I’m remembering this storyline correctly, what Garcia and others are after is Villaraigosa’s schedule (no doubt, to fully establish how long he has been seeing Salinas on the sly). As part of this coverage, we are witness to Garcia’s passage through City Hall being illegally blocked by security, her being actively jostled (“Don’t push me! Don’t push me!” she cries out on tape), and Villaraigosa, finally cornered at some public event, lamely telling her on-camera that he’s just going to continue to focus on doing the people’s work. (Perhaps not realizing that he is the reason the focus has shifted.)

Finally, today there was a major rally downtown in support of state bill SB-840, which would establish single payer healthcare coverage in California. Hundreds and hundreds of activists and all the major local news crews were in attendance. Major speakers included Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi, actress/comedienne Lily Tomlin, City Council President Eric Garcetti, and, a surprise turn-up, the always entertaining presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich. Who wasn’t there? Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Where was this rally held? Oh, the steps of City Hall. Tell me he’s not hiding out. Especially because, until recently, nothing got between Antonio and his limelight.

Given all this, I think I’ll share some advice for Antonio, advice I shared with two fellow Democrats in the car on the way down to the rally. I like Antonio, and I am rooting for him to pull himself out of his predicament of a 24/7 news cycle about his adultery which after two months so far just doesn’t seem to be ending. (And which he isn’t helping to end by going shoe-shopping with girlfriend in tow, thinking that those sunglasses actually hide his identity. Although this may be the first time in decades anyone has seen a mayor of Los Angeles in the Encino area when he wasn’t shopping for votes or donations.) A few years ago, when he was on the City Council and had not yet announced for mayor, I asked Antonio to do something about an issue I cared about; he did it, and I haven’t forgotten. Moreoever, although because I don’t live in the city proper I couldn’t vote for him, I don’t think people elected him to be faithful to his wife — they elected him to do a job. But now it’s the job that’s suffering.

So here’s the advice:

Antonio, stop sneaking around. You can’t avoid the camera crews, let alone the cellphones. Pick a moment (say, after a ribbon cutting), and give every news crew both professional and amateur the full benefit of your time. Stay an extra five hours if need be. Tell them that your relationship with Mirthala Salinas is an afffair of the heart, that you are a person of passion who got swept off his feet, that you ask for their understanding, that you are sorry that you hurt your wife and children, that you intend to keep seeing Ms. Salinas although you have made no decisions about marriage, and so on and on and on. You don’t need to share tawdry details, but you do need to be frank and forthcoming. In case you don’t get it, they’re chasing you because you seem to be hiding something. So stop hiding. And with regard to the papers that Ana Garcia wants: release them. If James Hahn released them, you should release them. Even if he didn’t, you should. You told people you were better than Hahn. Show it. And stop having security block her or shove her around, and give her a special interview as a make-nice.

Then, next time, you can join your compadres on the steps of City Hall for the news crews. And in a couple of years you can still run for governor.

p.s. Advice for Mirthala Salinas: your news career is over. Unless you pull a Geraldo and go tabloid.

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Now playing: Echo & The Bunnymen – A Promise
via FoxyTunes