Open Thread & BushCo Posted by JP Stormcrow, 29 Jun 2007 08:14 am

Take My Administration ….. Please

[Update: by order of the MoJ, and to keep the picture on the front page, this is also the weekend Open Thread (#15). For further hilarity, the MoOaD suggests this article about an FBI advisory to New England colleges on how to spot potential spies among their foreign students (hint: spies like to work late, and communicate with other scientists - a dead giveaway)]

George Grosz’ Eclipse of the Sun appropriately modified. Photoshop credit: Idea by spyder, execution by my daughter. Here is the original. “Full-size” reproduction of the Photoshop here. (to better see how well she matched the texture…. what is the point of blogging for if you can’t brag on your kids.)

This is meant to be a humorous post in honor of the new waves of hilarity coming in from BushCo CheneyCo this week. If you can’t laugh at the idea of your nation being under the thumb direction of three of the most morally bankrupt, fatuous, psychopathic liars you could ever imagine in your worst nightmare, well then just what can you laugh at? I mean if we can’t take a joke, well then, fuck us. It’s not like we have anything to lose other than our honor, sanity, reputation in the world, standard of living, self-images, sense of fair play, hope for a safe and sane future for our children, air, water, natural resources, environment, education system and pride. And to my knowledge none of those are protected under the Constitution- and I’m sure the Supreme Court is ready to rule 5-4 on that.

So where were we … ah, yes humorous post and all. Now I sometimes like to think of myself as an occasionally funny guy - now certainly not Richard Cohen funny- but funny like in locking some girls purse to her desk in 8th grade English class and then forgetting about it and leaving the room so that she and the teacher have to take all of her stuff out of it and then track me down to get the combination kind of funny. You know subtle, sophisticated, yet understated funny. And yet, amazingly enough, as I sit here writing this post I find that I am not laughing, in fact I am in a barely controlled state of subliminal rage, and what is more I find that I have been in that state for ‘lo these past five or six years.

And so since I promised the MOJ a post even though I actually had jack Friday smells like teh Arbitrary, I turn it over to you the readers and commenters of this explosive blog to supply your favorite snippets of humor from the exploits of those wacky Three Amigos of Torture and Deceit: Tweedledum, Tweedledummer and Tweedledummerer.

Well, turns out I do have several items to prime the pump.

1) Prior Cheney snark that is more timely than ever:

“Three” Branches of Government for the clueless in their homes,
Two Houses of Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine Mortal Justices someday doomed to die,
One Branch for the Dark Lord on his darkened throne,
In the minds of neocons where the Shadows lie.
One Branch to rule them all, One Branch to find them,
One Branch to bring them all and in the darkness bind them,
In the dreams of Cheney where the Shadows lie.

2) President Bush: General Pace, I find this very difficult to understand. I was under the impression that I was the only one in authority to order the use of nuclear weapons.
General “Peter” Pace: That’s right, sir, you are the only person authorized to do so. And although I, uh, hate to judge before all the facts are in, it’s beginning to look like, uh, Vice-President Cheney exceeded his authority.

…OK, I know, not very realistic…Bush would never speak in complete sentences like that.

3) And at least ol’ Dick can turn a phrase:

What sluggards, what cowards have I brought up in my court, who care nothing for their allegiance to their lord. Who will rid me of this meddlesome CIA agent and her husband.

4) Dave Addington’s legal strategy when they finally come to grab Dick Cheney. Everyone in the OVP stands up and says “I am Spartacus Darth Vader Dick Cheney”.

5) If you wish to assuage your smoldering rage about your government by reading and writing about the US Women’s Open, please do visit (and participate in) TC’s Take Your Blog to the Course” Carnival at Mostly Harmless. [This last was included under the provisions of Arbitrariness set out above and since it does not serve to remedy any racial imbalances it has been approved for use by the US Supreme Court.]

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Responses to “Take My Administration ….. Please”

  1. on 29 Jun 2007 at 9:12 am 1. christian h. said …

    Great picture! Clearly, one has the feeling that instead of tragedy being repeated as farce, we’re treated to both at the same time.

  2. on 29 Jun 2007 at 10:47 am 2. black dog barking said …

    Excellent Photoshop-ery.

    To the Loss List add habeas corpus—YouTube of Atty General Gonzales auditioning for Comedy Central. Based on posture and body language I’d guess the corpus of AG Gonzales is seated to Cheney’s immediate right; patiently awaiting his next assignment. No need to take notes or remember anything.

  3. on 29 Jun 2007 at 11:49 am 3. James Killus said …

    I figure that many folks here have read or heard of Bob Altemeyer’sThe Authoritarians and John Dean’s Conservative’s Without Conscience. I myself have been reading up on the Narcissistic Personality Disorder and how it fits so well into into Altemeyer’s description of the “double high” authoritarians.

    I’ve also been pondering a conundrum: if the President of the United States were to have a hit squad kill a number of persons, Senators, perhaps, who had in mind convicting him after his trial of Impeachment, and then he pardoned the members of the hit squad, it would all be perfectly legal and Constitutional, as the Presidental powers of Pardon are plenary.

    Which is part of a more general argument: no social system can survive if a sufficient number of its members act in bad faith.

    Christian H. and Oaktown Girl, I just sent a possible followup posting, too large to be a comment.

  4. on 29 Jun 2007 at 11:54 am 4. christian h. said …

    Which is part of a more general argument: no social system can survive if a sufficient number of its members act in bad faith.

    Indeed. Then again, if it’s merely the president and administration - that’s what armed rebellion is for, no? [note to any state security people reading this: 1. Don’t you have something better to do? 2. We aren’t at that point.]

  5. on 29 Jun 2007 at 12:55 pm 5. Oaktown Girl said …

    JP - love that image, as will be made clear by tonight’s upcoming proclamation by the Minister of Justice.

    [note to any state security people reading this: 1. Don’t you have something better to do?

    christian - this you ask of people who are spending their time spying on groups dedicated to non-violence such as the Quakers?

    What a fucking scam. It’s not about keeping us “safe”, as was proved to the whole world by BushCo’s deliberate outing of an undercover CIA agent working specifically in the area of weapons of mass destruction. It’s about hampering and punishing BushCo’s political enemies, and to hell with sane foreign and domestic policies as long as the right Insiders continue to get their pockets lined with huge government contracts.

  6. on 29 Jun 2007 at 1:00 pm 6. JP Stormcrow said …

    I myself have been reading up on the Narcissistic Personality Disorder and how it fits so well into into Altemeyer’s description of the “double high” authoritarians.

    Last year I posted a link to this “interesting” site on The Self-Deprecating Narcissist … ‘cuz I think I is one… (Actually I think was saying that Thurber was one.) For all I know the guy is a total quack, but it actually was an interesting read. Along the lines that if you are “more self-deprecating than thou” you are actually an ultra-narcissist. (I think. It was all way over poor little dumb JP’s head.) And one of his books is titled Malignant Self-Love .. for the self-deprecating masochists among you …

    “I try to hurt myself, I’m just not very good at it…”

  7. on 29 Jun 2007 at 1:22 pm 7. JP Stormcrow said …

    and then he pardoned the members of the hit squad, it would all be perfectly legal and Constitutional, as the Presidental powers of Pardon are plenary

    I’ve been reading some of the legal blogs quite a bit recently and it is clear that the words of any document like the Constitution are but a weak defense against malignance from within.The following is slightly modified from a comment I made at Balkinization.

    You know, these really are interesting times for this country. It is basically an “internal leak test” for the Constitution, there are so many parts of it being exploited, and which are not explicitly mentioned in it (or in law) due to “quaint” assumptions such as “honest brokers” and “honorable individuals”. But, hey! Those phrases don’t actually appear in the Constitution … and there is always impeachment, so no worries
    …
    If we are truly at the point where it is all just some fancy semantic game, and that is acceptable to the press and the country, no words written anywhere are going to stop that slide. My personal read is that we are in the greatest Constitutional crisis since the Civil War and like any Constituional crisis, it is more a test of our basic moral fiber than of any mere scratchings of pen on paper

    Some one in blogland recently noted how it is only news (and barely even then) when it is shown that some act of this administration is actually found to be illegal, nothing else qualifies**. In James’ scenario, the major story would be how the composition of the Senate might change due to the murders. “Dems Hold on Senate in Doubt After Purges: Republican Governors and Legislature Poised to Buck Public Opinion in Appointments.” And the treatment of the hit squad. “In Today’s Features section: “A Notebook of Prayers to Jesus from the Children of Hit Squad Members” “Katie Couric Interviews Hit Squad Wives. LIVE at 6 Eastern

    **I guess it is just the The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations. Or who knows, maybe The Low Spark of High-heeled (and Wingtipped) Bigots

  8. on 29 Jun 2007 at 1:34 pm 8. black dog barking said …

    in re: plenary Pardon conundrum

    A couple of years back the governor of Kentucky pardoned every member of his administration indicted in an investigation into hiring practices. The KY Supreme Court upheld his authority to do so.

  9. on 29 Jun 2007 at 1:52 pm 9. christian h. said …

    this you ask of people who are spending their time spying on groups dedicated to non-violence such as the Quakers?

    See, they do have something better to do!

    Another “funny” story about keeping us safe, for our own good etc. pp.: you know how we can’t import cheap drugs from Canada or Europe, because it’s, like, totally unsafe? Well, as we have been reading lately, it’s apparently completely safe to import the basic components of these drugs from unsupervised, unregulated factories in China (and I won’t even ask how the working conditions are in those factories) - just as long as the finished product has a “Made in USA” om it. Safety - or greed? We report, you decide.

  10. on 29 Jun 2007 at 2:37 pm 10. James Killus said …

    The depiction of Canadian drugs as “unsafe” is a transparent fig leaf; nobody believes it, not even the legislators who have been brib…er I mean lobbied, to spout such nonsense as rationalizations for their votes.

    The China scare is more grass roots, and I got villified in another venue when I suggested that it was more about xenophobia and racism than actual food safety. Perhaps I am overly sensitive on such subjects, but subsequent reports of U.S. companies using exactly the same compound (melamine) as a “binding agent” in their animal feed did not persuade me that I was in error. The China thing was front page news. The U.S. cases barely caused a ripple.

  11. on 29 Jun 2007 at 2:47 pm 11. christian h. said …

    James, I’m sure you are right - I’m not blaming China or the Chinese here. What gets me is that one of the rationales of “real-existing free trade” seems to be exactly to give US (European, Japanese) companies a way to escape the “regulatory environment” they face at home (not that it’s enforced here anymore, to be sure). I’d say it’s a bonus for our rulers that when something goes wrong - as it inevitably will - we can then blame it on those foreigners. It’s a win-win.

  12. on 29 Jun 2007 at 5:51 pm 12. Oaktown Girl said …

    I’m going to see “Sicko” tonight, and will probably be passing out flyers for CA single-payer sometime over the weekend at the movie theatre.

    I think this movie is really important and everyone should take/send as many people as they can to go see it. People know they’re getting screwed by the insurance companies, but they feel powerless to change it. A big part of why they feel powerless is because they don’t understand the mechanisms behind exactly how the screwing takes place, nor that we can actually do something about it if we put our voices together. It is a HUGE mountain we have to climb, but the tide is finally starting to turn. Now is not the time to be hopeless and apathetic, now is the time to act. Knowledge is power!

  13. on 29 Jun 2007 at 5:57 pm 13. James Killus said …

    Actually, power is ignorance.

  14. on 29 Jun 2007 at 6:32 pm 14. JP Stormcrow said …

    I tried and failed to come up with a good analog of Bob Dole’s great quote for the picture:

    History buffs probably noted the reunion at a Washington party a few weeks ago of three ex-presidents: Carter, Ford and Nixon - See No Evil, Hear No Evil and Evil.

    “I shot a man in Texas, just to make him apologize”

  15. on 29 Jun 2007 at 11:08 pm 15. Oaktown Girl said …

    Late night report from the Ministry of Justice after having seen the movie Sicko:

    [Action Alert! Californians - tell your rep to support SB 840 to guarantee health care, and see this site from the CA Nurses Organizing Committee.]

    Sicko turns out to be much more than what you might expect it to be. So the first thing I want to say is that even if you think you know “everything” about the subject of our depraved health insurance industry, I can almost guarantee you will learn something new - about its history, about the history of the “socialized medicine” scare in this country (both highly amusing and horrifying), or about some of the most evil tricks of the trade to deny coverage…retroactively.

    The movie does an outstanding job showing what life looks like when you don’t have the burden of medical costs weighing you down, (child care and student loan costs are talked about as well). Extra-bonus kudos because the movie doesn’t skirt the key workers’ issue: a worker afraid of losing their medical coverage is an obedient worker who won’t be leaving anytime soon, no matter what the conditions. Sicko gives ample time to what real Democracy is supposed to be about, and questions why ours looks nothing like that. christian: you’ll love the bits about the Red Scare tactics - very nicely done.

    Bad news: there’s a very good possibility that parts of this movie will have tears welling up in your eyes, and maybe even spilling down your cheeks. But having seen the whole thing, even more so than before, I say you really must see this movie, and you absolutely must get as many people as you can to see it as well. As many Americans as possible need to see what life can be, freed from the deadly yoke of our current “health care” system.

    Bravo, Michael Moore! 3Tops gives you 3 Horns Up!
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    Oaktown Girl
    Minister of Justice
    WAAGNFNP

  16. on 30 Jun 2007 at 12:01 am 16. The Constructivist said …

    Hey, at least we’re not yet 1930s Japan. No academics forced out of jobs for their views, no assassinations of moderate conservatives, no encouraging Americans to settle in Manchukuo Iraq, no military coup attempts, no God Emperor whose image is manipulated by militaristic cliques jockeying for power, no thumbing our noses at international law, no resource-bind due to our attempted occupation of another country, no…. Hey, wait! We have some of those things–or good ol’ fashioned American improvements on them. Can’t wait till we get the rest!

  17. on 30 Jun 2007 at 5:56 am 17. christian h. said …

    People, please listen to the MoJ! Even if you actually in fact do know everything about health care, the way our media work it is important that this movie gross a lot on this, its opening weekend. If it does, they’ll be convinced it’s an important topic for Americans; if the theaters are empty, they’ll say we don’t care. Sad that it works that way, but I’m pretty sure it does. So if you can go at all this weekend, please do!

  18. on 30 Jun 2007 at 8:37 am 18. black dog barking said …

    Every Monday it is dutifully reported, in newspapers and on TVs throughout the land, which movie made the most money. These reports refer knowingly to “gross”, gross being the ultimate gauge of a movie’s success.

    SiCKO’s not available here this weekend. Will catch it at first opportunity and probably stand in a bit of line. Fahrenheit 9/11 is the largest grossing film in the history of our local art theater, ergo the most successful. People packed the theater for a month, stood and applauded the credits after many of the showings. Three months later our city, county, and state voted for four more years of Bush/Cheney.

  19. on 30 Jun 2007 at 8:46 am 19. JP Stormcrow said …

    Extra-bonus kudos because the movie doesn’t skirt the key workers’ issue: a worker afraid of losing their medical coverage is an obedient worker who won’t be leaving anytime soon no matter what the conditions

    Right. This is one of the most pernicious hidden currents of great uncertainty and fear in contemporary American life that cause people to “arbitrarily” limit or channel their choices. I see it now with our family and many others our age as the children reach maturity - educational and employment opportunities are all carefully measured against their effect on freaking health insurance. And no surprise, the “support the status quo”, good little sheep ones alwways come out better in that regard

  20. on 30 Jun 2007 at 2:05 pm 20. Kiera PSI said …

    no God Emperor whose image is manipulated by militaristic cliques jockeying for power

    We don’t? You mean I’m praying to the burning bush for nothing?

    I see him as the wizard, with Cheney as the “man behind the curtain”, albeit an evil version thereof.

  21. on 30 Jun 2007 at 5:49 pm 21. Oaktown Girl said …

    Fahrenheit 9/11 is the largest grossing film in the history of our local art theater…Three months later our city, county, and state voted for four more years of Bush/Cheney.

    Black Dog - I think it’s only fair to give that comment a little more context. People in your city sat in the theatre and watched that movie for about 2 hours. Immediately thereafter they listened, watched, and read hundreds of hours worth of corporate media feeding them the BushCo talking points verbatim. And much of that was directly running Michael Moore into the ground. So hardly a surprise which way the vote went in your town.

    And I know you weren’t saying this, but I just want to mention that it’s important not to minimize the impact of films like Sicko and Fahrenheit 911 simply because they can’t move the population to mass revolt all on their own. They aren’t supposed to, and it’s not possible anyway. But they can and do move many people to action. And they can provide a rallying point, which we really need in this time of Outrage Fatigue where there are so many corruption and criminal fires that need to get put out, the tendency is for people to throw up their hands and say it’s all just hopeless.

  22. on 30 Jun 2007 at 6:24 pm 22. christian h. said …

    As you all know I am certainly under no illusions about the political process in a capitalist state. However, I believe there has been momentum building for positive change in the organization of health care in this country for quite some time; this film comes at the right time, tactically speaking.

    Will it decide any elections? No. But it may force the public debate to shift from the “single payer is political suicide” - story to a discussion of the pertinent facts: single payer works better, it’s more efficient, it is better for your health, it makes you slightly less of a wage slave than you are now. The issue affects almost everybody directly; liberals and radicals can work together on this; if played correctly, it could give us a “wedge-issue” of our own; and there’s even some support from within the ruling class. I really believe we can gain some ground on this.

  23. on 30 Jun 2007 at 7:09 pm 23. black dog barking said …

    The powers-that-be did manage to douse whatever small fires Fahrenheit 9/11 sparked, mainly by changing the subject. Moore himself held up pretty good. (He answered booing crowds at the Republican Convention that summer by smiling and flashing back the ‘L’ for loser sign.) I don’t recall any effective direct counter-response to the movie, just a lot of flailing around until the Swift Boats thing got enough traction to bring on the Paris Hilton / sharks / OJ treatment. After that it was typewriters, kerning, exit polls and a midnight mandate.

    Now, with Iraq, Gonzales & DOJ, Iraq, the latest Cheney utterances, Iraq, I Lewis Libby, etc, Health Care may be the path of least resistance for KKKarl and KKKrew.

    (To christian’s list of the benefits of sane health care I’d add “freedom”, a byproduct of being slightly less of a wage slave.)

  24. on 30 Jun 2007 at 7:18 pm 24. Oaktown Girl said …

    Agreed, christian. The timing of this movie is right.

    And quite frankly, Sicko is truly the most subversive movie I’ve seen in a long time. And perhaps the most subversive movie released on a mass scale ever. It shows so much of what the government and corporate entities DON’T want Americans to see, including people in other Western countries living under the “tyranny” of “socialized medicine” and enjoying a much better quality of life than we do. And perhaps the most subversive thing at all - it shows a self-described Conservative Canadian who understands that universal health care is absolutely vital to his country’s well being, and he’s glad to be a part of it.

    People in this country? Well, we’ve been so brainwashed and hoodwinked with misguided ideas about “bootstraps” and “capitalism”, we’d rather cut off one of our own limbs if it means preventing someone we deem as “undeserving” possibly getting something - anything - for “free”. That’s how sick we’ve become.

  25. on 30 Jun 2007 at 7:57 pm 25. Oaktown Girl said …

    Ha! I got a phone call in the middle of my last comment, and while that was happening, Black Dog put his comment up.

    Let me just say that I am one of the many Poster Children for being enslaved to jobs I don’t like and sometimes absolutely hate because of the health care issue. Everytime I’ve had a chance at a job I would have really loved and excelled at (including working for myself full time), I had to turn it down because there was no medical coverage offered, and it didn’t pay enough for me to buy medical insurance on my own. It’s a miserable life spending over 9 hours a day at job that gives you no happiness.

    Nothing making me want to go out tonight, so I’m staying in. Tonight’s rental movie is Copying Beethoven, which got mixed-to-bad reviews by most critics. But it seems reviews by my fellow classical music geeks say, reservations aside, it’s still has enough good parts that it’s worth seeing for our (classical geek) purposes. And there’s always the Ed Harris factor. So here we go.

    Ministry of Justice report to follow, of course.
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  26. on 30 Jun 2007 at 10:29 pm 26. JP Stormcrow said …

    Piling on with one more personal anecdote. We know a couple who are classic small government wingers. I was reminded of this when at a party I met someone who had some connection to Robert Axelrod who did such great work with The Prisoner’s Dilemma and this got us talking about Game Theory in general (which has also been my son’s academic interest). Overhearing us discuss decisions of when to cooperate or not, the wife remarked “Sounds like some kind of Communist thing”.

    Now they run a small business and are exactly the type who could probably really benefit from Government health, but I’m sure they think it would be demeaning to receive it. I have never talked about it specifically with them, but believe me it is how they feel about anything associated with the government. Of course, until she felt she needed to get some training and a degree, when the extremely cheap and pretty good local community college served just fine.

  27. on 01 Jul 2007 at 8:54 am 27. black dog barking said …

    The Health Insuree’s Dilemma [imaginary, no link]: you are offered a magic health insurance policy that costs the same as everyone else’s. When you sign up you must make a choice between two subPlans. Under subPlan A you make monthly payments for the rest of your life and never need once to use it. Under subPlan B you make the same monthly payments and in return get $100’s of thousands of benefits.

    Which is the better deal?

  28. on 01 Jul 2007 at 6:46 pm 28. christian h. said …

    Talking about wage slavery, here’s a pretty awesome recut of the Office Space trailer.

  29. on 01 Jul 2007 at 7:35 pm 29. JP Stormcrow said …

    …. I could set this blog on fire.

  30. on 02 Jul 2007 at 3:12 pm 30. Kiera PSI said …

    That SOB. He can’t even let his flunkies take the fall they were set up to take. HRM the shrub has commuted Libby’s sentence to a fine and probation. What a message that sends.

    I wonder if this will be the spark that finally sends these bozos down in flames? But no, the sheep care more about putting Paris Hilton in prison that someone who risked the sacred cow of the VP’s private war by violating national security.

  31. on 02 Jul 2007 at 4:19 pm 31. christian h. said …

    What really gets me about this is related to what James mentioned up in 3.: the president can do many things (especially since nobody is going to impeach him). And he’s going to be in office for another 18 months - that’s a whole lot of damage he can do.

  32. on 03 Jul 2007 at 6:21 am 32. Kiera PSI said …

    I’m trying very hard NOT to think about that. Call it ostrichism, but if I think about it at all I won’t sleep and I’ll make myself physically sick and that won’t help anybody.

  33. on 05 Jul 2007 at 11:03 am 33. Oaktown Girl said …

    [While I’m on hold…]

    JP - interesting thing about the movie Office Space - peoples’ perception of it has changed over time. When it first came out (Kiera and I and another friend saw it in Hawaii together), it didn’t make big money, and only got so-so reviews, although I really liked and appreciated it. And then when it first started being shown on TV, it was listed only as a two-star movie.

    Now, with the passage of time, it had moved well beyond cult-appreciation status, and the general public seems to have really picked up on just how on-target a commentary it actually is. It now consistently garners a three-star rating on TV, and one of the big cable networks calls it one of the “Movies We Love”. My only guess is that when the movie came out, we were still in the dot.com boom, and tech jobs hadn’t really begun in earnest to be outsourced yet like the manufacturing jobs had been. So I’m thinking there just weren’t as many people hating and struggling in their work life then as there are now.
    *******
    I promised a report (not to be confused with “review” of Copying Beethoven back up in #25. Well, it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either - “good” being loosely and generously defined here as entertaining or interesting. I don’t think it was the director’s fault, there just wasn’t much there in the script.

    It had a brief nice moment with the debut performance of the 9th, but that was about it. So as low as my expectations were, it still did not meet even those. It didn’t satisfy my music geek needs, and the script wasn’t interesting enough to fill my generic “chick flick” costume drama needs. I guess the only thing it satisfied was my curiosity. Bummer.

  34. on 05 Jul 2007 at 1:12 pm 34. JP Stormcrow said …

    So I’m thinking there just weren’t as many people hating and struggling in their work life then as there are now.

    Maybe, but I think the major element was that they totally blew the initial marketing, tieing it to Judge’s Beavis and Butthead stuff and missing their audience. So people came to it slowly due to that. (I paid no attention to it at first.) Now it may well be that as you say there is a larger portion of the workforce that “gets it” these days. For tech workers themselves, Dilbert had been out there for nearly a decade at the time, and Initech would have been very “recognizable” to anyone in that segment.

    So may be some truth in what you say, but it is hard to untangle it from the recovery from the bad original promo.

    Looking it up the other day, I learned that in 2004, Swingline made a short run of the stapler from the film (it had not been available in Red when it was in the film.)

    In some ways I think that the “flair” part of it (buttons etc. that Jennifer Anniston has to wear) is the most trenchant satire - you have to not only do your craqppy job but pretend to like it.

  35. on 05 Jul 2007 at 1:42 pm 35. Oaktown Girl said …

    JP - you’re probably right about why “Office Space” didn’t do big box office when it first came out. I have no memory myself of the marketing campaign - I didn’t have a TV at home. I’m sure I saw it because I read decent reviews - and because of the whole theme of oppressive work environments. (The Beevis and Butthead creative connection would have been a massive turn off for me). And yes, the whole “flair” thing with the TGIFridays-style restaurant was absolutely brutal.

    My main point in any event was that it’s a remarkable contemporary case of mass perception about a movie being changed over time, which is really quite rare these days with all our modern means of communication, esp. with people spreading their opinions to so many other people via the web. Remember - “Blair Witch Project” was a total internet “word of mouth” box office phenomenon.

  36. on 05 Jul 2007 at 10:52 pm 36. JP Stormcrow said …

    and because of the whole theme of oppressive work environments.

    There may in fact be more willingness to look head on at the true face of work these days. It has always been one of the true taboos of popular culture (as opposed to sex, drugs or other claimants) - don’t mention or dwell on the fact that there is this big monstrous soul-sucking, humiliating thing which takes up the majority of people’s waking hours. A lot of thoughts on this - too many for this comment, but several recommendations of movies/books that take on the working life head on.

    1) Clockwatchers from 1997 with Parker Posey and Toni Collette is Office Space for/with chicks. It is not as over the top as OS, but more “honest” in its portrayal by my judgement.
    You can’t fire me. You don’t even know my NAME.

    2) Joseph Heller’s Something Happened. Unsparing depiction of coprorate vacuity in the ruminations of office drudge Bob Slocum. There is some humor in it, but it is so dark and deep that it is easy to miss. Liable to simply annoy if you are not an office bound middle-aged middle class to upper middle class white guy.
    I get the willies when I see closed doors.

    3) Working by Studs Terkel. Published in the early ’70s, Terkel did in-depth interviews with 100 or so folks in different jobs across the country. I read it before I was in the workforce and found it fascinating - partly because it was something so rarely talked about.
    A Faulkner quote that Terkel uses to introduce the book:

    You can’t eat for eight hours a day nor drink for eight hours a day nor make love for eight hours a day - all you can do for eight hours a day is work. Which is the reason man makes himself and everybody else so miserable and unhappy.

    Cheerful stuff! Can’t wait to get out there and knock them dead tomorrow!