Freestyle Friday

Wake up the Kids and call your weird Aunt Phyllis, we'll have so much fun the neighbors will think it's weird! It's Freestyle Friday, so Koo Koo Kachoo to you! We got a guaranteed crowd pleaser on hand here today, step right up don't linger, there's something for everyone.

For the puerile rubbernecker in all of us, how about the "leering, dirty doctor" convicted yesterday in a $15 million case of serial sexual harassment while he worked at a Queens hospital. Matthew Miller hit on nurses, sales reps, interns, fellow doctors, patients, orderlies, janitors and even some cadavers and test tube specimens over his 27-year career:

Before nurse Janet Bianco stood up to him - risking her job at Flushing Hospital - Dr. Matthew Miller engaged in an almost constant and unchecked pattern of shameless sex talk and unwanted physical contact, she and other victims said in sworn statements. Miller's lecherous grasp extended from nurses at Flushing Hospital to female pharmaceutical sales reps sent to his private practice, his victims said.

Small world, or at least small borough of Queens, because it turns out I know 2 of his patients. They had heard rumors about Miller, but not specifics like:

Before he was stripped of his admitting privileges at Flushing Hospital in 2001, Miller earned a nickname from the nurses as a way to warn one another of his approach, Kmiotek said. "He had a handlebar mustache, so we would say, 'koo koo kachoo' after the Beatles song 'I Am the Walrus,'" she said.

Well, Bob and Holly, I hope your next doctor stays out of the news. One look at this creep and my first reaction was he got away cheap; the hospital is paying half the damages. You can't help thinking there should be a more fitting punishment for Dr. Touchy-Feely, one that involves him being stripped of his dignity on a daily basis, that is if he had any left. Somehow I don't think this is what old Hippocrates had in mind ("If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times, but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot")...

...What's with all this Snuggie madness? In what's being hailed as the greatest technological development of the new century, some innovative sort -- not content with things as they are but embarked on a never-ending quest to improve the lot of his fellow Man -- decided it would be a great idea to put sleeves on a blanket, or make a blanket out of a robe, or something of the kind...

...Before you scoff and write the Snuggie off up as another Chia Pet, consider that over 4 million have been sold in just the last 3 months. Perhaps America can Snug its way out of the recession...

Saturday Night Live has lampooned it, local newscasts have tried to get to the bottom of it, a New York Daily News reporter put on a Snuggie and walked around in public with it, predictably drawing quizzical stares...

...For some weird reason the Snuggie has hit the national Funnybone, and we know how painful that can be, but how long before some jackass trips down the staircase in one of these things and files a class action lawsuit...
...Speaking of dumb marketing trends, the other day on Ditmars Boulevard I saw a new store opening in a location that had been boarded up for a while. Some workers were putting up the sign, and it was also one of those Signs of the Times that just brings me down: BEACH BUM TANNING. Just when I thought my faith in mankind in general and in Astoria specifically couldn't get any lower, along comes this ridiculous abomination. I give the place six months before something even dumber replaces it if the recent trend of Retail Store Displacement is any indication...

...Weirdest product warning I've seen in quite some from the box of the new glass tea kettle I bought: "Manufacturer and Distributor of this product will not be responsible or liable for any physical, mental or emotional damage from the misuse of this product. Please use this product wisely and according to its instructions." Mental or emotional damage?! I just want to boil water for my Irish Breakfast Tea in it, not have a meaningful long-term relationship with the damn thing...

...Following spring training baseball is like drinking non-alcoholic beer: what's the point...

...Remember how I found 2o bucks in late November? Well, I found another 20 last week, but didn't get to keep it! I'm walking along on my merry way, coming home from shopping, when I spot a nice clean 20 folded in half, so without missing a stride I scoop it up and it's literally halfway down my right front pants pocket when a woman comes rushing out of Cassinelli Pasta saying "It's mine!" What was I gonna do, argue with her? I knew right away she was telling the truth, so I handed it over and, after a few curses muttered under my breath when she was out of range, I went back on my way, perhaps a little less merry than before...

...Was checking the dollar books outside the Strand the other day, Ash Wednesday, and after about 5 or 6 minutes nothing caught my eye and I was about to move along when I saw a book called, ironically, Ash Wednesday, so I had to pick it up for a buck. It's from 2002, and it's the second novel by actor Ethan Hawke, who considers himself something of a renaissance man. Skimming over the first 20 pages, it's not bad at all, a little reminiscent of Richard Price's Ladies Man, and that's high praise coming from me. It's just that I'm in one of my cycles where I'm not into fiction, so I'll put Ash Wednesday on the back burner. Oh shit, my apartment doesn't have a back burner! Mind if I use yours?

History Lo Mein

"But, now that we have embarked on this topic, we have had second thoughts about setting it down in writing; for after all it is very well known to many people. So let us drop the subject and start on another one."

Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu (2007, Laurence Bergreen)
Marco Polo: The Travels (Penguin, 1958 translation R.E. Latham)

Genghis Khan & the Mongol Conquests, 1190-1400 (Stephen Turnbull);
The Mongol Empire (Mary Hull)
Mongol: The Rise of Genghis Khan (2007 DVD, Sergie Bodrov)

1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance (2008, Gavin Menzies)

Chronicle of the Chinese Emperors
(2009, Ann Paludan)
________________________________________________________________
Some good history books to recommend, and one DVD, although as a caveat I will admit that my movie pick was given a big Thumbs Down by the two friends I mentioned it to. Anyway, perhaps my enthusiasm will prove contagious. Remember, even Marco Polo's journey started with but a single step.

According to the Laurence Bergreen bio, most of what Polo claims to have seen, he really saw. Scholars through the centuries have contested how much of what Polo set down in his book was based on first-hand experience versus what he had heard second- or third-hand. Bergreen seems willing to cut Polo a lot of slack, casting dispersion gently over some of the more spurious bits of Polo braggadocio, such as the role he purports to play helping the Mongols with their siege of a key southern Chinese city that was providing fierce resistance. Polo claims he then helped design a series of catapults based on the latest Persian models, which sounds like so much Venetian bologna to Bergreen.

In another intriguing passage, Bergreen offers a novel explanation for why Polo seemed to linger so long near the mountains of Afghanistan: perhaps he was kicking a nasty opium habit he picked up along the way. And you thought history had to be boring.

As you probably already know, Polo didn't actually set quill to parchment and write The Travels all by his lonesome; rather, while languishing in a Genoese jail as a prisoner of war around 1298, he dictated his fantastic tale to a fellow prisoner, a writer from Pisa by the name of Rustichello. Therefore, it's anyone's guess as to which adventures belong to the well-traveled but down-to-earth merchant and which to the writer of picaresque romances populated by chivalric knights. Kind of like in our day determining where manager Joe Torre ends and author Tom Verducci begins in The Yankee Years, nominally Torre's memoir but most of the time rendered in third person.

Whatever the case, the combination has stood the test of time. Polo left home in 1271 as a 17-year-old, and by the time he returned a quarter-century later, his claim to have seen more of the world than any single man ever had was wholly justified.

But it's the little details that make Polo's Travels such a fascinating read. Even when dismissing foreign customs and cultures in the sweep of a short paragraph, the style proves ingratiating. There are subtle variations on passages like "Since I have told you about these Tartars of the Levant, let us now leave them and turn to Turkestan, so that you may hear all about it. But as a matter of fact we have already told you about Turkestan and how it is ruled by Kaidu, so we have no more to tell." Then the master of the smooth segue is on to another exotic city, where invariably the natives are savages who worship idols, the amenities of life are good and plentiful, and the women are beautiful.

It's funny, I didn't start out on such a Sino-centric path, but one topic seemed to lead naturally to another. This good streak began with the Marco Polo biography, and that led to wanting to not only read Polo's Travels itself, but wanting to find out more about these raging, rampaging, fearless Mongols, who in the 13th century altered the course of history. Led by Genghis Khan -- who by sheer force of will and personal magnetism organized thousands of scattered, nomadic, often warring tribes into arguably the most cohesive military force in world history starting in 1206 -- their empire ultimately surpassed the Roman Empire and even Alexander's conquests, ranking second only to the British Empire in land mass. At its peak, the empire included not only China but as far south as Cambodia, as far east as Baghdad (a city the Mongols burned to the ground in 1258, after slaughtering the entire population), with control over Russia and the Ukraine (the Golden Horde) as well as part of Poland (Battle of Liegnitz in 1241) and Hungary.

In addition to their vast superiority in numbers (males up to age 60 were still draft-eligible), there was strict discipline and nuanced strategy in Mongolian warfare. Commanders of 10 reported to commanders of 100, who reported to commanders of 1,000 and so on up to 10,000 and 100,000, with constant promotion and demotion designed to reward soldiers based on merit, regardless of status. This resulted in a fierce loyalty not to one's tribe, but to the military chain of command.

Yet as innovative as Mongolian warfare proved to be, it was their ability to adapt their style of governing to the conquered lands that proved revolutionary, with policies that not only tolerated religious diversity but made a point of incorporating Christians, Muslims and Buddhists into positions of leadership.
But like all superpowers, the Mongols got a little too cocky and foolishly embarked on costly invasions of Korea and Japan. In the two unsuccessful Mongol invasions of Japan (1274, 1281), bad weather played as big a role in fending off the Mongol force as the fierce resistance offered by Japanese samurais, with kamikazes ("divine winds") and tsunamis conspiring to alter the the course of history, as thousands of ships in the Mongol fleet were lost at sea. This seeming intervention by the gods cast a pall over the once-infallible sheen of Mongol might back home, and just as suddenly as their meteoric rise on the world stage came their downfall. Following the death of Kublai Khan, the empire began to crumble.

I just happened to stumble on the Mongol DVD while I was checking out another movie at the library. I watched, loved it, and would have loved another hour. But after Genghis Khan's death the movie ends kind of abruptly. My thought was, as long as the director had his cast of thousands of native Mongols, dressed up in period costume with no place to go, why not spin the sucker out to 3- or 4-hour epic length? Well, turns out that Mongol was just the "first entry in a proposed trilogy." So for those of us who didn't get quite enough Mongol throat singing the first time around, we may have two more movies to look forward to. You go, Mr. Bodrov.

I found 1434 to be a terrific read, but I made the mistake of checking out the Wikipedia page halfway through the book. Turns out other historians are up in arms over some of the more controversial conclusions. The consensus is that not only are the author's credentials questionable, but his claims are often outlandish and his research shoddy. It's like writer Gavin Menzies was the James Frey of the historical world, with 1434 evidently the Million Little Pieces of the genre. Yet 1434 and its predecessor 1421: The Year China Discovered America were bestsellers. Maybe it's a good story even if it wasn't true.

The author claims that not only were the Chinese sailing around the world centuries before Europeans, but on one specific expedition they reached Italy and bestowed gifts on the Vatican, including the latest maps of the world, astronomical tables, and a comprehensive encyclopedia containing the latest Chinese innovations in agriculture, city planning, engineering and weaponry. Later on, Da Vinci and other "geniuses" like him, according to Menzies, were merely offering variations on what the Chinese had known for centuries. European civilization really emerged from the Dark Ages and took off as a direct result of the 1434 contact between Chinese and the West. And it was Chinese science and map-making that made possible the voyages of discovery, specifically an astronomical chart that was based on knowledge of the earth orbiting the sun hundreds of years before Copernicus and Galileo. There's probably an element of truth to the Chinese influence, but perhaps attributing the entire Renaissance to this one 1434 event is going too far.
Before reading Chronicle of the Chinese Emperors, I had no idea how much emphasis the culture placed on the afterlife. For the same reason ancient Egyptians built their great pyramids above ground, the Chinese built whole cities underground for the deceased nobility in unbelievably ostentatious displays of wealth and industry. They believed that they would need all their everyday belongings, utensils and even toiletries in the next life, and so houses were replicated down to the smallest detail.

The emperors themselves went to even greater lengths to ensure their afterlives would not only be lavishly comfortable but safe. Why else would the First Emperor, in the 2nd Century BC, have himself buried with thousands of life-size, life-like terra cotta soldiers and horses? This proved to be the rule rather than the exception, as the bigger the gravesite, the more notable and powerful the ruler. The Chinese were kind of funny like that. But aren't we all?

See also:

Highly recommended
Falling Man
Pirate Histories
Poe Eye
Finding Wiki

Cramps' Lux Interior Dead

THE MUSIC WORLD lost another larger-than-life figure this week as Lux Interior, lead singer and founding member of Psychobilly legends The Cramps, passed away at age 62.

Even among New York City punk bands, there was something so menacing, so authentically fiendish about The Cramps that they stood apart from the scene even as they were a major component of it. In an era when it was good capital sense to pretend to be psychologically unhinged and mentally unbalanced, The Cramps seemed more than a little out there, even while playing up the more campy aspects of their ghoulish, horror movie persona for all it was worth.

The basic Cramps lineup featured no bass guitar, just two guitars and drums and a lean, emaciated, quite possibly deranged lead singer calling himself Lux Interior (real name Erick Purkhiser). The visual focus onstage alternated between the mostly shirtless lead singer and statuesque guitarist Poison Ivy dressed in tight black leather (real name Kristy Wallace, perhaps the original intimidating goth chick). Their signature sound was Neo and Retro at the same time, a blistering combo of 1950s rockabilly and 1960s garage punk. But as Lux himself is quoted in the excellent New York Times' obit: "Rock ’n’ roll has absolutely nothing to do with music. It’s much more than music. Rock ’n’ roll is who you are. You can’t call the Cramps music. It’s noise, rockin’ noise."
The Cramps for the most part operated under the radar of FM radio and the mainstream music business. But on their two best full length albums -- Songs the Lord Taught Us and Psychedelic Jungle -- as well as on the essential early compilation Bad Music For Bad People, they were right up there for a while with the best that the Punk genre could offer. It was pop music, sure, but somehow it seemed less like a mere commercial product that you held in your hands and more like a personal companion in your own struggle for identity and search for meaning.

Rudimentary as their musicianship may have been when starting out in 1976, like many fellow punk bands, after 2 or 3 years of steady touring, The Cramps emerged as a riveting live act. Their trademark sound was a primitive, almost primordial beat that seemed to rise up from some dark swamp where the baser, cruder instincts of mankind still lurked. I think All Music Guide nicely sums up The Cramps' trashy appeal: "The Cramps celebrate all that is dirty and gaudy with a perverse joy that draws in listeners with its fleshy decadence, not unlike an enchanted gingerbread house on the Las Vegas strip."

The Cramps - Save It

Not much of a video, but among my favorite 2-3 Cramps songs.

The Cramps - Garbage Man

The Cramps - Live at Napa State Mental Hospital

Uncle Jay Explains: Feb. 2, 2009

"Bullet" To Canton

FINALLY, SOME POSITIVE NEWS for Dallas Cowboys fans on Super Bowl weekend: the original #22, Bob Hayes, is going to the Hall of Fame, part of a strong Class of 2009 that includes Bruce Smith, Rod Woodson, Randall McDaniel, Derrick Thomas and 2,000-year-old owner Ralph Wilson.

Once dubbed the World's Fastest Human as a track star at Florida A&M and an Olympic gold medalist before embarking on his NFL career in 1965, Hayes became better known as "Bullet Bob" as a wideout with Dallas -- literally a threat to score every time he touched the ball, a touchdown waiting to happen. He still holds the Cowboys record for receiving TDs with 71, catching 371 passes for over 7,000 yards, better than a 20 yards per catch average. And Hayes was also a dynamic punt and kickoff returner. As the spectacle of pro football was overtaking baseball as the national pastime, it was the attraction of larger-than-life characters like Bob Hayes that helped to tilt the scale in the NFL's favor. The sight of "Bullet Bob" streaking like a blur across your color TV screen was emblematic of the excitement offered by football on a weekly basis.

The thing about any Hall of Fame, whether football, baseball or even Rock & Roll (Sex Pistols yes, Aerosmith no) is that you know it when you see it; if you have to think long and hard whether a candidate deserves to be enshrined, they probably don't. All the players in this year's class fit the bill, but for Hayes it comes 34 years after his playing career ended, and almost 7 since he passed away in 2002 at age 59.

One finalist who didn't get in was Cris Carter. He seemed to be a consensus lock judging by sports talk radio, but I never thought Carter was ever one of the best receivers in the league during his time. His career numbers are very good, with 130 TDs and over 1,000 receptions over 16 seasons, and he will probably get in sooner or later, but I'm glad this loudmouth has to wait a while, especially after his repeated over-the-top anti-Cowboys rants. Most notoriously, Carter said on ESPN that if he was running the Cowboys, "I'd get rid of T.O. T.O. got to go from the beginning. Right from the giddy up. I take one bullet and put it right in him. Bam!" He later apologized, sort of, but who knows, maybe that mindless, classless comment cost him a few votes this year. Nowadays when we hear the words wide receiver and bullet, we probably think of Plaxico Burress and Cris Carter first before Bob Hayes, and that's a shame.

DE Bruce Smith had over 200 sacks during a 19-year career, helping lead the Bills to 4 straight Super Bowls in the 1990s. G Randall McDaniel went to 12 straight Pro Bowls as an offensive lineman with the Vikes. S Rod Woodson, even when he was playing, you knew this player was an all-time great DB. Chiefs' LB Derrick Thomas had 126 sacks in an 11-year career cut short in 2000 after a fatal car accident, including a record 7 in one game. He may have been a notch below LT as far as blitzing banshee outside 'backers, but it wasn't a deep notch, and his 45 forced fumbles are a good indication of what a handful Thomas was from an offensive game plan standpoint. Yet even "experts" like WFAN's Mike Francesa were giving Thomas very short shrift leading up to yesterday's announcement.

As far as the game itself today, Arizona will upset Pittsburgh and, almost more importantly, put a lid on the traps of all the insufferable Steeler fans. I'd be surprised if Pittsburgh's overrated defense can hold the Cards under 30. Steelers won't have the cold weather to help them in Tampa, and therefore I see it 34-16 in favor of the Cards, denying Pittsburgh's bid for a 6th Lombardi Trophy in the process.