Art Machine
Just another former infatuation junkie

Da Leeb has delivered his closing argument (his words) in the campaign against Lamont (link via TalkLeft)

The highlight:

I am the only Democrat in America to run against George Bush in a national election twice. I even beat him and Dick Cheney once, if all the votes had been counted.

Dear Mr. Da Leeb,

Al Gore beat George Bush if the votes had been counted. You were along for the ride.

And I think you ran against John Kerry the second time. And lost. To John Kerry.

Happy Trails,

-The ArtMachine

If you’ve been under a rock lately, you might have missed the fact that Da Leeb has been (gasp!) facing some opposition for the Democratic primary in his home state. And now it appears that the Lieberkidz are out in force, disrupting campaign stops for Lieberman’s opponent. You can see some pictures of the events here.

A large man, around 50 years old or so, then started screaming at Ned, “Are you an Al Sharpton Democrat, or a Bill Clinton Democrat?” Ned was trying to answer, and the gentleman kept yelling. The Lamont press secretary tried to intervene, and meanwhile, the people behind the counter who owned the restaurant were horrified and embarrassed. Then Ned Lamont went up to the few people in regular clothes and introduced himself, even as the Lieberman supporters kept screaming. He also tried to introduce himself to the Lieberman staffers, but to no avail. The screaming continued, and it was so abrasive that he left, and the whole crowd followed him outside.

These kids poured out, and a half a dozen reporters were mostly outside. The large man kept yelling, and was joined by one particularly obnoxious Lieberman supporter who started yelling about national security and how Lamont would endanger the country. The messaging seemed rehearsed. The Lieberman supporters started getting aggressive, pushing some of the Lamont staffers. When confronted, the Lieberman staffers said that they are just doing what the bloggers did.

I’ll admit it. I don’t like Da Leeb. It’s been a long time since I liked Da Leeb – I pretty much only liked him when he was Al Gore’s Veep nominee, and then just because it would mean Gore was the Prez. I think Leeb spends a lot more time attacking members of his own party for being too liberal than he does actually doing his job – and I think that’s apparent from the fact that he only tears into his opponents in a given debate when they’re his fellow democrats. Salon today features an article suggesting what we all pretty much already knew – Da Leeb is a Fox News Democrat [may require use of a free day pass to read the story]. That is, Da Leeb has appeared frequently on Fox News – and been hailed as a good friend for doing so. Sean Hannity seems to like him, having extorted a pledge that Da Leeb would appear on his radio show every month.

Good boy. Have a bone.

It’s possible that a lot of the attacks against Da Leeb – the accusations that he’s a Republican in Democrats’ clothing, the accusation that his campaign is run by the Republicans, that he’s Bushie’s bestest friend, and so on – are overhyped and unfair. But when Da Leeb attacks his fellow democrats, disrupts their events, calls them names, and has supporters spouting talking points like, “Are you an Al Sharpton Democrat, or a Bill Clinton Democrat?” then it’s no wonder that Da Leeb is finding himself awful lonely on the Left. I, for one, consider myself an Al Sharpton and a Bill Clinton Democrat, and I find the attempts to polarize along those lines offensive.

Anyway, the indicators are that even if Da Leeb attempts an independent run, he’s a non-starter. So it may be time to say farewell. I wish I could join you in a round of “I’m so glad we had this time together,” Leeby-baby, but I hate it when people lie through song.

I’ve written before at great length about my experiences with mp3.com in its prime, and about my departure as the once-optimistic music portal descended in a spiral of cocaine and hedonistic flings with aging pop starlets. In particular, I’ve written about how the original mp3.com’s service gradually shifted away from being a service for musicians into a way to squeeze money out of musicians.

It never occurred to me just how bad it might really have been, though, until a digg.com link pointed me toward the autopsy photos of a dot-com. Specifically, it’s an archive of photos of the asset auction for mp3.com. It didn’t bug me to see the massive stacks of computer equipment – some in what appear to be unopened boxes still just stacked and gathering dust. It didn’t bug me to see a pool table or some video game cabinets. Nor did it bother me to see row upon row of expensive workout equipment – although it did make me ask, ‘How many people did they employ that they needed a gym this size?’

It’s when you get into the section featuring the furniture and art that I really started to wonder about the company. First of all, what are they doing with Barry & Levon’s love seat? Why did they need a talk-show style set-up that looked like something a Bond villain would have broadcast his demands from? And why did an executive need a desk that looked like he was about to announce the appearance on their stage of the latest recipient of the Von Boom Award for Mad Science?

Even so, I wondered. But I still wasn’t upset.

What was upsetting was nestled down in the depths of the ‘Miscellaneous’ section. Two pictures of seemingly normal conference rooms, each with a simple wooden table and some chairs.

Why is this upsetting?

Because in all of the lavish luxury displayed by the other pictures – in all the money that was spent creating some wannabe record label exec’s wet dream of an office, and in all of the psychedelic experience decoration, the one place where expenses were spared happened to be the conference room. The message sent by those two images is that the company didn’t care about the business at hand. The rest of the office is a playroom. It’s full of toys and games and fun and comfort and, well, it’s also a bity tacky. But it’s apparently all designed to be a place where the people working were having fun.

The conference rooms were designed to get people out of them as soon as humanly possible. They were not comfortable places, nor were they particularly enjoyable places. And maybe a conference room shouldn’t be. But, still, it suggests at least part of the reason that mp3.com in its original form doesn’t exist any more. There was no business – just a place to spend money. And, toward the end of its run, the artist’s money, in particular.

La Queen Sucia addresses the issue of Melanie Martinez’ dismissal from PBS from the perspective of a parent whose child was a fan of her show.

But one of the few things he is allowed to watch is the PBS preschooler channel, Sprout. He loved the Goodnight Show hosted by the sweet, helpful, loving Melanie Martinez. He would get up and stretch with her, and do crafts with her.

Now that PBS has fired her, he actually seems to feel like he’s lost a friend.

For those of you unfamiliar with the case, Martinez has been dismissed as the hostess of ‘Goodnight Show’ because of some work she did as an acting student. Apparently, she was one of the actresses who participated in the (tame) satirical attacks on the abstinence-only movement, the Technical Virgin PSA’s. The videos – which I haven’t seen in years, but I remember as not featuring any nudity and being a pretty accurate attack on abstinence-only rhetoric.

Valdes brings up an interesting point that PBS still continues to show episodes of ‘Shining Time Station,’ the host of which was none other than George Carlin. Personally, though, I think Valdes is a little hard on Carlin – the language she blasts him for using doesn’t appear in ‘Shining Time,’ and there are a lot of similarities between Carlin’s case and Martinez’. Both have previously worked in satire that didn’t really pull any punches. Both have done things that probably should not air during their children’s show time slot.

But only Martinez got fired for it.

Part of this is probably because Carlin was already famous before ‘Shining Time’ hit. His move from explicit stand-up comedy to kiddie show host was seen as a selling point for the series. I can remember at the time of its release that ‘Shining Time’ picked up a lot of free publicity from reporters asking, ‘What’s George Carlin doing hosting a kiddie show?’

Martinez, on the other hand, had little clout to call on to protect her job. Yes, the fact that she is not a white male helped to contribute to that. But also the fact that she was establishing herself with ‘Goodnight Show,’ while Carlin was using ‘Shining Time’ to take a break from his already-successful career made a difference between the two. It matters little, however, because a double standard is a double standard however it’s sliced.

And as an actor and a writer, I think the dismissal of Martinez sets a dangerous precedent that goes against what we’ve typically accepted – that artists are artists and express themselves in many ways and at many levels. Take the example of Jessica Harper. Harper is an award-winning children’s singer/songwriter. She is well-recognized for creating some of the most original children’s albums in years.

Prior to her career as a kiddie songstress, however, Harper played a porn actress in a movie called Inserts (in which she appeared in the nude), a drug-addled starlet in The Phantom of the Paradise, the heroine in violent giallo flick Suspiria, yet another drug-addled starlet in Shock Treatment, and a frigid society girl in Pennies from Heaven (in which she also appeared nude). None of this, however, has ever stopped her from performing for children.

As a matter of fact, the only thing that has ever really knocked anybody out of a career entertaining children is working in hardcore pornography (which, frankly, ruins just about any other entertainment career you might wish to pursue, unless your name happens to be Jenna Jameson). It is generally accepted that those who work in art for mature audiences and art for younger audiences will endeavour to keep the two separate and that one will not affect the other.

The rumblings have always been there. When the television show ‘Xuxa’ appeared on the air, a parent of a friend asked if it was right for her to be working with children. ‘She posed in Playboy,’ they said. ‘What if a kid finds her picture in there?’ Which, of course, raises the question – you bought your kid a subscription to Playboy? Does Child Welfare know about this?

The implications of Martinez’ dismissal are dangerous for artists in general. As conservative organizations push more and more for television stations and content providers to take over the parenting role, there is less and less freedom for artists to move. What you did yesterday on a stage for an audience of college kids will destroy your hopes to appear on ‘Sesame Street’ tomorrow. An artist can follow the old rules – keep the mature content for mature audiences and the young content for your younger audiences – but there are elements now for whom that is not good enough. They will drive you from the screens if they even hear you mentioning something that is not kid-friendly, meaning that young actors in college will have to decide early on that they want to be kiddie stars – and never do anything else, no matter what.

It’s a slippery slope. And once we’ve driven the multi-level artists out of kids’ shows, it’s only a short step to telling them they can’t work for adult audiences any more, either. And then we wind up with television that is across the board for ages six and under – no ‘Sopranos,’ no ‘Frasier,’ no ‘House’ or ‘24.’ Not to mention no ‘Sesame Street’ – Henson started out in puppetry for older audiences. No reruns of ‘The Electric Company’ – Bill Cosby was on that show, and while he may never swear in his stand-up, he’s not squeaky clean, either. And did you see where Eddie Murphy hugged Fred Rogers? So much for ‘Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.’ Not only no shows directed for mature audiences, but no quality children’s programming, either. Imagine that.

It’s almost like the artists are important or somethin’.

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