An Inconvenient Truth, An Unconsolable Citizen

In the film "An Inconvenient Truth," Former Vice President Albert Gore Jr. delivers an Oscar-worthy portrayal of a Green Party Candidate with a powerful working knowledge of both global warming and effective Powerpoint presentations.

I'll get to the film in just one moment (bear with me, please), but first, I want to give everyone a fair warning (caution: spoiler ahead): America's Favorite Lesbian Muppet Melissa Etheridge sings the "Theme from 'An Inconvenient Truth'" at the very end. The song is really, really bad, even for Melissa Etheridge. It's a song better-suited for commercials for Massengill douchebags or pharmaceuticals promising liberation from the perils of restless leg syndrome rather than closing an otherwise important movie about "Earth on the Brink." It's acoustic, and "inspirational," and you can almost hear the mumbled overdub: "Headaches, nausea, and anal bleeding are not uncommon. If erections persist for more than six months, call your physician."

OK. Let's continue. Watching "An Inconvenient Truth" is like watching a guy in Triple A ball set homerun records the year after he was in the majors and struck out in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded in game seven of the World Series, caught looking at a pitch hanging in the strike zone that's so perfect for swinging you can't believe it's this good and this easy because there's no way they would make it this easy so you just take it and watch the loss. You're glad to see he's still swinging for the fences and connecting and making these small victories, but there's still that nagging voice: WHERE WAS THIS LAST YEAR???

When it mattered, he picked Joe Lieberman as his running mate. In debates, he said "I agree with you" one too many times with a Debate Champ like George W. Bush.

Watching this movie, I actually laughed out loud at a couple jokes Gore made. Gone is the stuffed-shirt. Gone is the Angry Bearded Guy. Filtering out the direction, clearly designed to give Gore and His Message the importance it deserves, I still liked the man, far more than I ever did in the past. (Although, I did love the irony of how "An Inconvenient Truth" was rated: "PG: Mild Thematic Elements." Looks like the PMRC Monster bit back, eh? Nice to know that Melting Polar Icecaps, Coral Reef Destruction, and Hurricane Katrina are just like the mild thematic elements one would find in any Pixar movie.)

Yes, goddammit, you learn a lot, and yes, goddammit, every weak counterargument is confronted and squashed, but goddammit, you still go back to the goddamn undeniable fact that THIS MOVIE WOULD NOT HAVE NEEDED TO HAVE BEEN MADE HAD AL GORE RUN ANYTHING BETTER THAN A CRAPTASTIC CAMPAIGN IN 2000. Now, seven years later, he reveals this heretofore unseen (electable too!) side of this personality--something like a thoughtful and engaging college professor (you know: like me!).

Was he this way all along, and was I just relatively spoiled seven years ago, as used to barely literate leaders as we are today? Maybe to the former, and Yes to the latter. They gloss over the 2000 Election in about a minute, and that's fine, but 2000 hangs over the whole movie like a bad hangover. You wonder how it's going in the alternate universe that has President Albert Gore, Jr. You wonder if they still have their manufacturing base. You wonder how the 3000 troops who died in this universe are doing on that side. You wonder if Vice President Lieberman is kissing George W. Bush, Middle East Sales Manager of Halliburton.

All that aside and all things considered, "An Inconvenient Truth" does its job. It doesn't ask you to live in a tree and listen to the Indigo Girls (but Melissa Etheridge? [shudder]). The requests are doable. I wouldn't complain if Gore was put in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency. He can't be any worse than the oil lobbyists who have run it in more recent years. So, yeah, go see it...just mute the song at the end. You're welcome.

Just Because We're Floridians, It Doesn't Mean We're Nudists

I met my fellow exiled Floridian friend Delano for drinks at the Gold Star Bar, surrounded by bike messenger lesbians, living breathing Candace Rialson characters, and unwashed art school dropouts, basking in the lighting that makes you feel like you're inside a poorly maintained aquarium.

"Well, I can kiss this new job goodbye," Delano said, taking a seat. He removed his blue winter hat and tossed it on the bar. "My co-workers think I'm a nudist."

"You're not a nudist," I said. "Why did you tell them that?"

"I didn't," he said. "But I met them for drinks after work, and we started talking about where we grew up, and I told them--"

"Florida," I interrupted, the rage bubbling inside of me, the way it always does when faced with this kind of stereotyping from Midwestern-Americans.

Delano ordered an orange dacquiri. I ordered a second Sex on the Beach. Make it a double, bartender.

"I should have told them I was from Alabama," Delano continued. "That would have excused my accent, and they would just think I was an inbred hillbilly instead of a nudist."

"No, dammit!" I said. "We can't hide anymore! I tried hiding it, remember? I covered my tanlines. I called Coke "pop." I changed the way I said "roof," "jack off," and "Afghanistan!" I even pretended that Old Style was a good beer, remember?"

"Oh, Old Style!" Delano said, suppressing a gag. "How could you live that lie?"

"I know. It was tough." I took a big slurp out of my Sex on the Beach to drown the awful memory of that fully kreausened nightmare. "But that was when, after the inevitable Old Style hangover, I took a good hard look in the mirror, and I stared at my golden complexion, my surfer smile, my Margarittavillian devil-may-care countenance, and I said to myself, 'Self. This is who you are. A Floridian.' And this, Delano, this is who we are. Floridians."

I raised my Sex on the Beach in a toast. "To Florida," I said.

"To Florida," Delano answered. "The nudest peninsula in America."

This anecdote is all-too-typical of the struggles and indignities most expatriate Floridians politely endure on a daily basis. While, in the interests of full disclosure, it is not uncommon for parties in Florida to end up with the kind of nudity that would make the average Midwesterner blush like a Kansas Junior Leaguer winning the "Best Casserole" blue ribbon at the County Fair, that does not--repeat: DOES NOT--mean that we Floridians are nudists.

Nor does it mean that our day-to-day existences were as idyllic as your two weeks in your Kissimmee timeshare. To answer all your questions I've received in the past 10 years of living in Chicago in one felt swoop: No, I did not go to theme parks every single day; Yes, the weather is nicer in February than it is in Chicago; No, I am not friends with Mickey; No, I can't think of any place in Orlando that might have "local color;" Yes, that 2000 election was a mess and I had nothing to do with it; Yes, I did go to the beach when I lived there; No, Tampa is not worth your time; No, I am not a fan of Jimmy Buffett, Rob Thomas, Gloria Estefan, the Backstreet Boys, or death metal.

While you Midwestern-Americans have shown great strides in recent years towards your myriad Florida biases, it is my hope that you will make even greater improvements in 2007. You can start by repeating this phrase: Not all Floridians are nudists. Not all Floridians are nudists. Not all Floridians are nudists. Repeat this just like a mantra, until you believe it, and then we'll talk about hooking you up with some prime swampland...before the developers destroy what's left of the swamps in favor of golf courses and mcplantations.

Thank you.

Glenn Beck Needs Luv

Rarely (and by "rarely," I mean "once a week") do I refute an argument by saying "Dude, you really need to get laid," but in the case of Glenn Beck, such ad hominem argments are not without merit.

He's entitled to his opinions. If he wants to advocate the assassination of Michael Moore--hey, it's a free country and the First Amendment...oh, wait. Let me amend this. He can say what he wants to get ratings. I'm just sayin'--the cat needs some trim.

I watched quite a bit of Glenn Beck's program while in Florida, in 5-20 second increments while hitting the clickah from one channel to the next (I don't have cable in my own home) in a fruitless search for anything decent to watch, and what was immediately apparent was how his interviews were like an endless series of bad blind dates.

You imagine Glenn behaving this way over dinner with an unsuspecting woman (or a helpless sheep). Eating off of her/its plate, talking with his mouth full while raving about our republican form of government, Cindy Sheehan, and Al Sharpton's hair. The woman politely disagrees; the sheep baas a civil negatory; Glenn laughs mockingly. Another carafe of Bud Light is served. More one-sided raving. A desperation in the tone, tinged with that annoying whine everyone anywhere develops in their larynx when they argue politics and religion. The woman looks at her watch; the sheep yawns. They go halfsies on the bill; the woman insists; the sheep runs into the kitchen, puts its head on the chopping block and begs to die.

Glenn goes home. Alone again, naturally. He puts an Anita Bryant record on the turntable and masturbates to the cover of Ann Coulter's "How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)." A lonely drop of semen falls on Coulter's adam's apple, mixed with one tear, then two tears, then a deluge of uncontrollable weeping.

"I can't even get a sheep to fuck me!" Glenn blubbers, sniffles, and wails. "It's the fault of atheist Ivy League professors, activist judges, environmentalists, Susan Sarandon, lesbian folksingers, one billion Muslims, and the entire city of San Francisco!" He continues weeping like an emasculated Champaign, Illinois indie-rocker with a broken four-track until falling asleep in a fit of convulsive sorrowful shudders.

But I digress. I certainly don't mean to suggest that Glenn Beck is into bestiality, and I apologize if I gave off that impression. If I had to guess, I'd say "Probably not." I'm sure the 12 geniuses who comprise the Matthews Meter would also vote "No" on this question 12-0. Even Eleanor Clift. Forget about the sheep. All I'm suggesting here is that maybe if somebody gives Glenn Beck some sexual healing, he might relax, and we'll have, you know, civil discourse.

(Sidenote: I have one other thought about Glenn Beck. We now have TV's made of plasma and mirrors, gigantically detailed with surround sound and high definition. Considering the undeniable fact that 98% of what is on television is total and complete crap from top to bottom, do we really need this technology? Does Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Greta Van Susteren, Ryan Seacrest, John Gibson, televangelists, "Gilmore Girls" and so on and so forth deserve this level of visual and aural hyper-clarity? With the exceptions of football and "Six Feet Under," does anything?)