Blackmoor Vituperative

Most of the time, we know Russell Brand as the goofball douche-monster best known for his (former) drug use, promiscuity, and obnoxiousness (oh, and his brief marriage to Katy Perry). But when the guy gets up on his soap box, he can be lethal, as these MSNBC anchors found at in June when he humiliated them on live television. The guy can display moments of pure brilliance, and when he gets a head of steam behind him on social and political issues, he’s one of the most charming, eloquent, and thoughtful guys in the entertainment industry.

Take, for example, this interview with Russell Brand with Newsnight’s Jeremy Paxman on the BBC yesterday. Paxman basically tries to shame Brand for broadcasting his political opinions despite the fact that Brand doesn’t vote, and Brand does a brilliant job of upending his argument, demonstrating why voting in this system doesn’t amount of a hill of goddamn beans given all the injustice of the economic disparities we are facing.

(from Underestimate the Intelligence of Russell Brand at Your Own Peril, Pajiba)

I have been voting since I was old enough to do so, but I confess that I, too, have suffered from “weariness and exhaustion from the lies, treachery and deceit of the political class that has been going on for generations.” I think he’s entirely too optimistic about the possibility of change, though. Power exists to perpetuate itself, and I am not aware of any effort to restructure society in a more egalitarian fashion that has been successful.

To me, voting is like trying to affect the trajectory of a bowling ball by leaning to one side while it rolls down the lane. It accomplishes nothing, but it makes me feel better.

P.S. Here’s a follow-up video shared with me by Roger Carden.

The theme for Cult Movie Night this month was “haunted houses”. The first movie was one of the films that scared me the most as a kid, Burnt Offerings, starring Oliver Reed, Karen Black, and Bette Davis. One of the things I really liked about Burnt Offerings is that (spoilers!) the haunted house wins. That’s pretty unusual, even today.

The second movie was Legend Of Hell House, starring one of my favorite actors, Roddy McDowell. I love Roddy McDowell in just about everything, and he really excels in this. He’s the only person who keeps his head together from start to finish, and he turns out to be the hero of the movie (although he doesn’t start out that way).

One of the things that I found really entertaining was how effortlessly he shrugged off the ghost-possessed sexual advances of the female cast. Of course, we know now that McDowell was gay, so those scenes have a level of irony that the director might not have intended. We don’t know whether whether McDowell’s character was gay (unless we’ve read the novel, which I have not), but when the ghost-possessed temptresses fail and fail and fail again in their attempts to seduce him, you can just imagine the ghost’s frustration at McDowell’s apparently indomitable willpower. (“What is it with this guy? Is he made of stone?”)

Next month’s theme: 1995 Ice-T movies! What’s that? You didn’t know that was a genre? Sure it is!