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Larry Clark: The Kids Are Alright, But You're a Perv

The first time I saw “Kids” – somewhere around age 12 or 13 – I fast-forwarded between the sex scenes. In fact, odds are that I beat off to the scene where Telly gives a girl HIV. I’m not proud of this, but neither am I especially ashamed. I was geeked up on hormones, and the grainy world Larry Clark had created was so far removed from my innocent suburban environment that it was almost like getting off to something completely fantastic, like anime (Actually, I think getting off to anime is creepier, all things considered). The independence, sexual precociousness, and nihilism of the characters exuded a whiff of sensationalism that even a credulous punk like myself could smell.

This same tentative skepticism haunted my trip through the Larry Clark retrospective currently showing at the International Center for Photography. Starting with his early work of the 1960s, which documents the amphetamine-fueled decadence of his teenage peers in Tulsa, OK, and continuing on through his equally harrowing depictions of contemporary skateboarders, the photographs are at turns titillating, exploitive, and genuinely beautiful. Most affecting are the youthful works, in which we feel no shame borrowing Clark’s x-ray glasses and watching his friends shoot up, have sex, and hurt themselves, because at this point Clark’s gaze is not lecherous, but simply curious – he may be hiding behind the camera, but he is still part of the group being photographed, a trusted peer.

Later, as Clark grows older and his subjects don’t, a protective, Puritanical uneasiness began clouding my aesthetic (and, let’s admit it, sexual) appreciation of his work. I mean, yes, that picture is perfectly composed, and I like naked girls as much as the next guy, but how did this forty year-old dude talk these kids into having sex in front of him? What separates these photos from the sanctimoniously sympathetic schlock shows (“Tomorrow on Donohue, the tragic tale of HOT LOLITAS WHO CAN’T GET ENOUGH MIDDLE-AGED DICK! Be sure to have your Kleenex close at hand [For which bodily fluid?].”) and pederast-friendly Tiger Beat centerfolds that Clark self-righteously laments in his collages and video presentations? Does it all come back to the ancient Duchampian retort, “It’s art because I say so?” Usually I’d agree, but not this time. Larry, here’s my final offer: you’re an immensely talented, socially astute, highly entertaining pervert. Or maybe I’m just bitter because my teenage sex life sucked.

The Sportswriter, by Richard Ford

Frank Bascombe, the protagonist of Richard Ford’s The Sportswriter, is a man who refuses to lose faith in humanity’s ability to forge meaningful connections, even as he wades through a lifetime’s accumulation of emotional rubble. Over the course of a three-day period ending, conveniently enough, on Easter weekend, Frank documents the unassuming intricacy of everyday life in his beloved home of Haddam, New Jersey, effortlessly interweaving honest but not entirely self-aware digressions on his fractured but not necessarily tragic Midwestern childhood, an unwelcome brush with literary fame in New York City, the subsequent retreat to the suburbs, an agreeable but unchallenging career as a sportswriter, and his adulterous reaction to the death of his young son, which has left him single and aimless but still clinging to a hopefulness that is at turns tragic, pathetic, comic, and, finally, inspiring.

Ford’s sense of place is finely honed and uniquely American. Whether dissecting neighborhood dynamics in Haddam or Detroit’s philosophy on the whether, the author illuminates the subtle regional peculiarities that have shaped our political and social landscape. Frank revels in these quirks, and has a propensity to equate those he meets with the circumstances of their upbringing to the point of caricature, whether it be his ex-wife, a former model he first met at the University of Michigan who was raised in a privileged country club environment, or his current love interest, a world weary but sweet nurse from Texas.

Incapable of passing judgment but endlessly speculative, prone to infatuation but wary of true intimacy, fascinated by the ambiguity of the modern world but unable to find his place in it, Frank remains a man of the times, and, as he says, “being a man gets harder all the time.” But in the end, Frank’s difficulties transcend gender and concern his ability to confront reality head on. His blind faith in social conventions prevents him from fully engaging with life. As the weekend concludes and the shaky existence he has fashioned teeters precariously, Frank finally begins to realize that although he may be contentedly drifting through life without forethought, his actions are nonetheless having a very real effect on himself and others. The prequel to the Pulitzer Prize winning Independence Day, this novel is a bracing reminder that no life is ordinary.

The Village Voice Shows Some Love

I let out an involuntary, girlish squeal on the train yesterday when I unexpectedly came across my handiwork in the Village Voice. Check out the article and proclamation. Now I just need a byline.

Set Adrift On Memory's Bliss

An old, good friend of mine was recently IMed by a girl we went to elementary school with and lost track of somewhere around 8th grade. It is quite possible that if he hadn’t mentioned her I would have died without ever giving her another thought. Such is the miracle of the Internet, I suppose. But for all of their ostensible virtues, I cannot help but wonder if IM/Friendster/Google make the bridging of time and space too easy. Personally, I find it disturbing that in a not-so-rare moment of weakness I need only dash off a few keystrokes and click my way past the second or third “o” in “Gooooooogle” before I am confronted with tangible, textual, or even, God forbid, photographic evidence of an ex-girlfriend’s new, improved life without me. Is this a healthy way to live?

The immutability of the past is a central element of tragedy, and one that is potentially mitigated by today’s technological advances. It is now much more difficult to vanish without a trace. Should you ever really need to find someone, they are only a few searches and a clever, offhanded, safe e-mail away. This would seem to be a good thing, and in many ways undoubtedly is, but I nonetheless question whether the pervasive connectedness we now take for granted has somehow cheapened our sense of memory and personal history. Like Jay Gatsby, we are still borne back ceaselessly into the past, but our respective means of transport are crucially different: he made the trip because of love and its failings; while we are called back with every Friendster invite and successive episode of “I Love the 90s.”

I don’t mean to say that I wasn’t just as intrigued as my friend by the reappearance of our long-lost classmate. In trying to remember the details of her life I was reminded of many other people and circumstances that evoked a pleasant sense of wistfulness. Still, there is something to be said for the bittersweet nostalgia one experiences upon studying a faded class picture and wondering what the hell happened to a forgotten peer, who could be a jihadist just as easily as a junior executive, a sensation I will never have the chance to enjoy with my rediscovered schoolchum, who is leading a reliably predictable life in a nondescript Eastern suburb.

Let there be blog...

I begin this experiment in self-absorption on Sunday, a time usually designated for rehydration, hazy regret, and malignant foreboding. But on this particular seventh day, in accordance with the Good Lord’s holy dictates, I have dedicated myself to creation. And what exactly have I spawned? The mind palpitates with possibility:
1. An impetus to write more (the intended purpose).
2. Another source of guilt (Ryan: Why haven’t you posted to your blog in a week? When are you going to get your priorities straight?), anxiety (Ryan: Why did you write that? No one wants to hear about yet another night of overindulgence, furtive glances, botched encounters, and inevitable resignation.), and anger (Ryan: Why don’t you throw your roommate’s laptop across the room in recompense for its inability to magically translate your blind fumbling with HTML?).
3. The opening salvo in a triumphant engagement with the world, resulting in hard-earned renown, legions of readers, and a lucrative book deal (I strike a tone of self-deprecation, but the sad thing is that some small but integral part of me has hooked itself on this one.).
4. A brutal test of my idealistic belief that any life, no matter how banal, is worth sharing, given that it is presented in a compelling manner.
How much more is there to say? It will be what it will be. I’m cautiously optimistic.

Reduce - Reuse - Recycle

This is some old stuff I posted on a friend's blog. I'm cheating, I know, but I feel like I needed to add some ballast before setting sail.

HAVE YOU NO SHAME?

Bill O’Reilly, Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, I’m with 'ya – TV has gone too far. Maybe I’m a traitor to my generation, maybe I have been prematurely struck by the inevitable conservatism that is bound to overtake us all as we grind towards middle age, or maybe I simply watch so little TV (this due to a lack of cable, not a high-minded eschewal of the boob tube) that the rare doses I do imbibe are a shock to my fragile system. Regardless, I feel that it is my duty to rage against a depraved culture.
Because I haven’t yet wrapped my head all the way around this issue, and also because I can only squander so many working hours, I am going to highlight the three shows that most egregiously flaunt common decency. Be forewarned: this is not meant to a snarky, hipper-than-thou wink at the vagaries of pop culture. These shows truly disturb me, in the same way that your nose ring disturbs Grandma.
1)“Swans.” As an unabashed consumer of rap music and pornography, I admit that it is hypocritical of me to take such offense to this show. That said, if I had a daughter, I would not allow her to watch "Swans." I am disturbed that we are now so comfortable with plastic surgery that it is not only accepted, it is celebrated as a form self-empowerment. OK, you’re ugly. So were Winston Churchill, Emma Goldman, and Christopher Wallace, and life still gave them good n’ plenty. I want to see the year-later episode, when the contestants are coming to the painful realization that while cellulite can be extracted, self-hatred is inoperable.
2)“Who’s Your Daddy?” I find reality TV disturbing in general, but usually I can laugh it off. In this case, however, my discomfort went beyond the superficial repulsion one feels watching some schmuck enjoy a larvae lunch. To see a disturbed, scantily clad young woman parading her dysfunction for all the world to see was profoundly saddening. Is she a crazy, fame-hungry bitch? Sure, but isn’t it clear that all of this isn’t her fault, that she is the product of a fucked up childhood, and, more generally, an exploitative society? I’m sorry, but this show is truly a damning indictment of the state of our world.
3)“Ego Trip’s Race-O-Rama: Dude, Where’s My Ghetto Pass?” This show is funny. This show features awesome graphic design. This show includes the insights of the dude who played Dwayne Wayne in “A Different World.” Nonetheless, this show is wrong. First, when did it become kosher to spout the n-word on basic cable? Personally, I don’t think white people have the right to use this word, regardless of its ubiquity. If impressionable whites hear this word on VH1(!) they’re going to be comfortable using it wherever they please, and then they’re going to get shot. Furthermore, this show trivializes the ghetto, poverty, and serious questions of race. I could go on, but I won’t.
In short, we’re all going to hell. Good day.
RD

SCHIAVO COVERAGE

Yesterday, while running on the treadmill at the gym, I was subjected to 30 minutes (well, 33 including cool-down) of the CNN news program Anderson Cooper 360. And I thought my run was grueling. The subject du jour was Terri Schiavo, whose story is perhaps the most egregious example I can recall of the Right’s appalling lack of scruples and remarkable facility at exploiting personal tragedy for political gain. But what disturbed me even more than the partisan grandstanding and reductive protesters was the way in which this complex and deeply disturbing issue was reduced by our nation’s premiere news outlet to a facile montage of exploitive interviews, misleading polls, sensational images, manufactured confrontations, and tawdry scandals.

Because the TV at the gym was muted and without subtitles, I was unable to hear what was actually being said by porcelain-skinned Anderson Cooper, my third-favorite Channel 1 News alumnus. After going online reading the transcript, I soon realized that I wasn’t missing much (As an aside, I would suggest that everyone at some point read the actual text of their favorite blowhard’s broadcast. Take away the bombastic graphics, flimsy music, and immaculate coifs, and you are left with some of the most manipulative and cynical writing this side of US Weekly.). The Schiavo coverage led off (What happened to the journalistic triangle, Andy?) with the story of Thomas (T-Bone) Bone and his granddaughter, Jennifer Johnson, who was having difficulty visiting her T-Bone due to the massive crowds surrounding Woodside Hospice. An excerpt:
DAVE MATTINGLY, 360 CUB REPORTER: You get the knock on the door that says, Now's the time. And you just go, right?
JENNIFER JOHNSON, GRANDDAUGHTER: Absolutely.
MATTINGLY: What are you wearing?
JOHNSON: I'm wearing a pair of black pajama bottoms and, like, a maroon T-shirt. I was just in pajamas.
MATTINGLY: Did you have time to put your shoes on?
JOHNSON: No.
MATTINGLY: Did you have time to grab a purse?
JOHNSON: No. I just ran right out the door.
What about your ChapStick? Please, God, tell me you didn’t forget your ChapStick!

After a quick break to cover boring shit like an earthquake in Indonesia and the impending death of William Rehnquist, whose successor will have an enormous say in the “right to life” debate, Coop gets back to the real news: an in-depth segment on Jodi Centonze, Michael Schiavo’s girlfriend. Could someone please tell me what this has to do with the issue? I mean, seriously, folks. And you follow this with a story about Terri Schiavo’s struggle with bulimia? Now, don’t get me wrong, bulimia is a serious health issue that deserves a place in the national dialogue. However, in this context bulimia is being broached not to shed light on a health issue, but instead to add another layer of scandal to this already desecrated discussion. I, for one, am convinced: in regard to mass media, it’s time to pull the plug.
RD

A WRINKLE IN TIME

I really liked her dress. It was strapless and primarily black, with blocks of white and yellow across the chest. It was the sort of dress I would wear if I were a girl. Say what you will, but this criterion carries a lot of weight with me.

This isn’t a "love at first sight" story. She was a pretty girl wearing a cool dress who piqued my interest last Saturday, which wasn’t all that much different than the Saturday before that, really.

My friends and I had somehow ended up in the VIP section of an extremely loud and crowded club in Chelsea. This is not my typical M.O., but neither is it unprecedented. Also, lest I give a false impression of glamour, it should be mentioned that entrance into the VIP section required only that you get the nod from someone paying the exorbitant fee for bottle service.

I’m not sure who we knew, but this hadn't stopped me from taking advantage of their generosity. Let me sum up the circumstances thusly: I was drunk, the music was familiar and good, and there was a pretty girl with a cool dress dancing next to me. I could go on at length about the inner turmoil I went through getting up the nerve to talk to this girl, and in fact I just deleted a long and excruciating paragraph in this vein. Suffice it to say that I’m a neurotic mess, and that if it wasn’t for the booze I never would have gotten up the nerve to introduce myself.

It was a typical conversation between two drunken young adults in a loud, crowded club, certainly not worthy of quotation marks or indentation. This is what she learned about me:
1. I had no idea what had brought me to this club.
2. I work as a writer for the Mayor, which seriously isn’t as cool as it sounds.
3. I’m 24. This was a reflexive and utterly stupid lie.
4. I live on the Upper East Side. This was a premeditated and therefore even more inexcusable lie.
5. I hope to write novels one day, but I’m very far away from that goal right now.
6. I don’t usually smoke, but since they’re letting everyone smoke inside here, why not, and yes, I did get wax all over my cigarette when I tried to light it with the candle, I know, I'm an idiot.

This is what I learned about her.
1. She knew someone at the club who was celebrating a birthday.
2. She goes to Fordham.
3. She’s 20 (which makes my one-year age lie even more foolish and unnecessary).
4. She lives in Bergen County by herself because her parents abandoned her, and no, it isn’t too bad, it was just how things had to be.
5. She also wants to write.
6. Her favorite writer is Madeline L’Engle, and no, she didn’t know that her books are infused with Christian themes, she thought that was C.S. Lewis, and, well, now she knows that it’s both of them.

I enjoyed our conversation, especially the part about Madeline L'Engle, and thought about asking for her phone number before she left. But then I remembered that I had lied about where I lived, which would be hard to explain in the unlikely event that she gave me her real number, answered my calls, accepted an invitation to hang out, and eventually visited my apartment. So I just wished her good luck.
RD

GENERATION Y(DLE)

Idlers: Are you happy? Spring is in the air, the NBA playoffs are upon us, and Chuck is finally making an honest woman of Camilla, but it seems as if virtually all of my reasonably comfortable peers are banking on a future overseas jaunt, job change, or romantic entanglement to snap them out of their post-collegiate malaise. What gives? Am I overreacting to typical New York neuroses, or is our generation finding contentment more elusive than our predecessors? Is this the result of unrealistic expectations, or has an increasingly competitive job market, coupled with a rising cost of living, resulted in murkier prospects? Is this what we get for our innocent indulgence in Nintendo/chat rooms/designer drugs/Reebok Pumps/gangster rap/premarital sex/Hypercolor t-shirts/pogs?

Personally, I don’t think we’re to blame. Thanks to Sesame Street, educational computer games, and AP classes, we are all too smart for our own good but too brainwashed to do anything about it. We know that money can’t buy happiness, but Saturday morning commercial breaks and 50 Cent videos have cursed us with unquenchable consumerism. We hope to find that special someone, but the astronomical prevalence of divorce among our parents and the latest strife between Nick and Jessica has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that love stinks. We have benefited from unprecedented political and social freedom, but our government is currently waging a war premised on lies. The Greatest Generation suffered far more hardship, but they also enjoyed an unambiguous victory over the forces of evil. What awaits us? Somebody get me a Prozac.
RD

4/5 UPTOWN

The dude I sat across from on the subway today had grown out the hair on his chin and twisted it into an inch-long braid. He was black and in his mid-30s. A backwards, generic blue baseball cap rested lightly on top of his short, wispy afro. He was a drinking a Budweiser tallboy from a brown paper bag, and he secured the beer in a pouch on worn leather duffel bag between sips. He wore cement-splattered blue jeans, a long-sleeved navy blue Sean John t-shirt, and lumberjack work boots. Around his neck were at least five silver chains of varying thickness, from which dangled three silver medallions: a bulldog; a New York Yankees “NY”; and a cross adorned with semi-precious pink stones.

I wondered where he was going, and where he was coming from. I wondered if he experienced any apprehension about drinking in public. I wondered if the guys at the construction site ever gave him shit about his goatee or his chains. I didn’t wonder then, but upon further reflection I wonder now whether he was even allowed to wear his chains on the construction site, seeing how they might become tangled up in the equipment, and besides, they must be heavy and uncomfortable. I wondered if he bought the chains to impress women, and if so whether or not this had paid off. I wondered how drunk he was. I wondered if he noticed that I was staring at him, and I wondered what he would do about it if he did. Then I went back to reading my book.
RD

AUTO NEUROTICA

I don’t know how I am supposed to feel about cars. As an adolescent, I was a religious reader of Car and Driver and Motor Trend, eagerly soaking up information about everything automotive, from the latest review of the Kia Sephia to pornographic exposes of the latest European supercar. To a young man without a driver’s license, cars mean freedom and power. But now I suspect that even in the unlikely event that I might be able to afford the car of my dreams, I would feel conflicted about spending so much money on what is essentially a big penis. My perception of myself as a relatively enlightened, socially aware dude hinges on a disdain for bourgeois consumerism and object fetishism. Still, I cannot ignore the small but essentially part of me that watches in poorly concealed awe as a beautiful Mercedes or Ferrari zips through the frenetic New York streets. So it was with considerable ambivalence that I visited the New York Auto Show, a massive spectacle that draws thousands of suburbanites each year to Gotham’s bleak Crystal Palace, the Javits Center.

As I entered into the packed building, I experienced the unsettling culture shock that now hits me whenever I am surrounded by non-New Yorkers. I simply cannot help feeling smug when assessing the paunchy bodies, ill-conceived outfits, and unembarrassed earnestness of our neighbors from New Jersey/Long Island/Westchester. Intellectually, I am truly repulsed at my elitism and realize that is completely unjustified. Nonetheless, it persists, and the Auto Show did little to strengthen sporadic efforts to soften my snobbiness. No matter where I turned, I was struck by another example of a disturbing deficiency of critical thinking skills among everyday Americans. A few examples:
1. Attendees (including myself) paid the auto companies to see their ads.
2. We are easily manipulated through our sexuality. All of the exhibits featured provocatively clad, heavily made-up models whose primary purpose is to attract the male customer. It was interesting to watch the eyes of the young boys flit between the cars and the models; you could practically hear their neurons fusing together cars and sex.
3. All of these cars are pretty much look the same. Sure, some are bigger, some are sleeker, and some have more bells and whistles, but they all conform to the same sharp, clean, and cold design aesthetic that evokes a Donald Judd sculpture.
4. We have unthinkingly lapped up the car companies’ branding strategy. It is the car’s packaging, and not the car itself, that compels the car owner to equate his needs and personality with a certain brand. I know this phenomenon isn’t unique to the automotive world, but at the auto show the pitch was especially brazen.

Walking around the convention center with my iPod, notepad, and self-satisfied smirk, I couldn’t help feeling as if I was the only one who could see the levers that were shaping our desires. I knew that when it came time for me to purchase a car, my choices would be unsullied by greed and marketing. And then I came to the Ferrari exhibit and was awakened to that which had first attracted me to cars, and what those who I had previously pilloried had known all along: cars can be absolutely beautiful. Take away the sex appeal, the status boost, and the racing pedigree, and a Ferrari is still art on wheels, a seamless marriage of engineering and sculpture. And the same can be said, to a lesser degree, of all cars. I should have known all along. Middle America, please accept my apologies. You may be a bunch of mindless consumers, but even a pompous ass like me cannot help himself from eventually being seduced by the appeal of cars. As soon as I round up 600 large, put me down for one shiny, factory-fresh F-430. My “End World Hunger” sticker will look great on the bumper.
RD