Film: Typography

In Ronnie Bruce’s short film Typography, poet Taylor Mali lets it all hang out about how people talk today. Hipsters. Kids. Cooliodoolios who don’t want to sound too committal about anything. Every utterance is just a little fart with a question mark at the end. ‘You know?’

I don’t happen to have this problem with sounding non-committal and all like you know laid back. I get in trouble because I talk too much like a guy who’s swinging a baseball bat. But, uh, you know, in an era of fake Bush wars and a ‘liberal’ president who tells me I’m going to have to buy insurance from a murderous private company or else… well, hmmm, like, dude, I’m swingin’ my verbal bat just as hard as I want and I’m hoping to hit someone in authority. The Tea Party folks are idiots, but there’s one thing they’ve got right. Obama is so over, he’s, like, you know… done.  Obama reminds me of a school principal.  Never says anything worth listening to.  He’s got the dullest eyes I’ve ever seen on a president.  Notice that?  Blank.  Even Bush had expression.  Always terror.  Sheer stark raving terror radiated out of Bush’s little monkey eyes.  Obama radiates the pause between pre-planned comments – the ‘umm’ moment.

Of course, when people suddenly get very clear, direct, self-assured and forceful in their statements you know what happens, right?  You get Hitler.

Iran Protests Are Irrelevant

The rallies and protests in support of opposition presidential candidate Hossein Moussavi or current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran are totally irrelevant.  The president of Iran is purely a middle-management position that reports to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenie who is an Islamic religious leader of a theocratic state.  The protesters in the current uprising are arguing for their votes to be counted in a meaningless election which does nothing but support a theocratic regime that rules the entire country by their interpretation of the word of god.  The religious government of Iran completely suppresses anything that might pass as free speech, it treats women like animals who have no rights and who count as only one half of a man.  It also threatens to wipe other nations off the face of the globe.

If I were a crowd of a few million protesters in Iran (after all, crowds often act as a single entity), I would not bother about protesting presidential votes.  I would remove the Supreme Leader and the Guardian Counsel completely and by any means necessary.  I would eliminate the religious government entirely.  Only then would the protests have any meaning.  Only then would there be any possibility of a free election.  And only then would I take the protests seriously.  It’s all or nothing, folks.  If you don’t like your government, get rid of it.  Meanwhile, you’re just a side-show.