Being Where?

Times writer Ben Ratliff quotes the subject of a recent obit he wrote (“Kim Fowley, Rock Producer and Svengali, Dies at 75,” NYT, 1/19/15) thusly, “I’m so empty that I don’t have distractions. If somebody has substance or has developed something, I have the time for them.” It’s rare that human beings develop this level of perspicacity about themselves, particularly when the insight they are making refers to the absence rather than a presence of characterological attributes. Fowley was involved with legends like John Lennon and Alan Freed and such groups as The Runaways, the Byrds and the Mothers of Invention. Of course, his self appraisal, which would also have made a wonderful epitaph for a tombstone were it put in the third person, could be taken simply as a description of being “cool.” “Cool" was an affect so ubiquitous in the music business, particularly in 60’s and 70’s, it could almost be the subject of parody. But Fowley’s Zen like description of himself also resembles the main character of Jerzy Kosinksi’s Being There, played by Peter Sellers in the Hal Ashby adaptation of the book. Chance was a tabula rasa on which others painted their wishes and desires. When you think about it such selflessness whether intentional or inadvertent is a marvelously unexpected persona for a promoter—no matter how laid back or cool the come on. The music world has produced many unique personalities and the songs they created are often descriptions of a philosophy or world view. Fowley who had both song writing and production credentials apparently stood out even amongst this colorful and eccentric crew. It probably didn’t hurt either that according to the obit, “He was 6-foot-5, narrow-hipped, square jawed with a dead-eyed stare, perverse and well-spoken, often in makeup or face-paint." In the piece Ratliff also quotes Fowley as saying, “I became an actor in life. I used theatrical illusion to reinvent myself for whoever I was trying to get something from, whether it be an audience, a band or a song.”

EMP or Not to Be

Remember Dr. Strangelove. United States Air Force Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) sets off nuclear Armageddon to ward off the Russians who are responsible for  the fluoridation that is attacking “precious bodily fluids.” The Kubrick classic was based on a book by Peter George called Red Alert or Two Hours to Doom. Now according to an article in the Times ("Amongt Gingrich's Passions, A Doomsday Vision," NYT, 12/11/11)New Gingrich is warning about EMP, electromagnetic pulse. The Times piece reports that Gingrich has worked with William Forstchen on historical novels and has written the forward to his doomsday thriller One Second After. “Millions would die in the first week alone,” the Times quotes Gingrich as writing in his forward. The idea is that a nuclear weapon hefted into the atmosphere “would set off a huge and crippling shockwave of electricity.” Like Jack D. Ripper Mr. Gingrich favors preemptive action. “We are on the verge of catastrophic problems,” the Times quotes him as saying. “I favor taking out Iranian and North Korean missiles on their sites.” When you think of it, doesn’t Gingrich look like a character out of a Kubrick film? He has the brilliance of  the professorial Strangelove (Peter Sellers), suffers the delusion of Ripper and demonstrates the xenophobia of General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott). Gingrich is really a throwback to another era in which people named their children Newt and future cold warriors showed off their latest trophy wives to their congressional colleagues. Weapons of Mass Destruction? Fiddlesticks . Newt has bigger fish to fry.

The Finance Minister and the Chambermaid

George Simenon was a notorious rake, having purportedly had sex with thousands of women, including chambermaids. Simenon was almost as prolific in writing his Inspector Maigret novels and other works, but not quite. Now, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund and a prospective Socialist party presidential candidate, has been accused of raping a maid in his $3,000-a-night Times Square Sofitel suite. The Times reported that this was not the first time Strauss-Kahn, who is married to "Anne Sinclair, an American-born French journalist," has gotten into trouble as a result of his desires for employees (“I.M.F. Chief, Apprehended at Airport, Is Accused of Sexual Attack,” NYT, 5/15/11). At the I.M.F., he’d gotten involved with Piroska Nagy, “a Hungarian economist who was a subordinate there.” “The economist…left the fund as part of a buyout of nearly 600 employees instituted by Mr. Strauss-Kahn to cut costs.” Would that the solution for Mr. Strauss-Kahn, who was arrested in the first-class section of an Air France jet, were as neat or simple this time around. The Times quoted Paul J. Browne, spokesman for the NYPD, as saying Strauss-Kahn “came out of the bathroom, fully naked…. He grabs her, according to her account, and pulls her into the bedroom and onto the bed…. She fights him off and he then drags her down the hallway to the bathroom….” The French are noted for an easy-going attitude towards sex, and jumping into bed with chambermaids is a routine part of French farce. It’s also a reflection of a more universal law, which is that everybody wants to fuck everybody (in both the amorous and aggressive connotations of the word). If Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers were alive, they might have even used this in a Pink Panther sequel in which Clouseau is on the trail of a randy finance minister—only this isn’t a farce.