I walk the line

Some entertainments do not stand out as either bad or good enough to merit the record of a trial.

Such was the case with the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, which we saw on Friday at the Meridian. Sure, Joaquin Phoenix did a fine Cash impersonation, Reese Witherspoon was her usual perky self, the subject himself is interesting, and you learn a few things about his career you probably didn’t know (unless the movie made them up): that his brother died tragically in a sawing accident in his youth; that he wrote Folson Prison Blues while a bored, not very talented unknown serving a tour in the Air Force in Germany during the Korean War, and had to be challenged into performing it for an audition; that the only real-world experience the song could be based on was not a murder and a stint in prison, but his brother’s death – for which his father made him feel guilty most of his life – and his stint in the Air Force; that he proposed to June Carter on stage, where she accepted; and that songs you always thought were the fruit of their marriage – Ring of Fire, Jackson – they had in fact long performed together before it.

But all in all, it was a fairly standard, somewhat overlong biopic, certainly worth the seeing – but not really worth blogging about.

So also was Jane Monheit at Jazz Alley, where we caught her second set the Saturday before. Nice Christmas songs, and a good time was had by all – but beyond some disappointment that she didn’t do Baby It’s Cold Outside – it seems every version of this ever made has been revived on compilation CDs this year, along with Santa Baby, while last year they still belonged to Ella Fitzgerald and Eartha Kitt – no doubt because she hadn’t brought someone man enough like Johnny Cash along to sing with her, but just an aggresively egotistical saxist who played tenor like a rapper sings.

I just don’t have the time or energy to blog all this stuff – plus I caught a weird kind of half cold a couple of weeks ago, and while the cold symptoms were weak, whatever it was wiped me out physically more than a typical cold would; maybe it was a flu weakened by the vaccination I had a month back.

Otherwise I would have blogged not about Monheit or Cash, but about a few social instigations I’ve been meditating recently – and in one case even actively working on, walking my own line between irony and political engagement.

Despite my debilitation I decided to finally enter a contest I’d heard about awhile back, held by a website called SinceSlicedBread.com. My wife’s union the Service Employees International Union, which recently split off from the AFL-CIO to pursue more activist initiatives, is apparently behind this contest – though they don’t make a big thing of it on the website.

The contest, which closed December 5th, was to submit the best idea for improving the lives of working Americans since sliced bread, as the saying goes. You could submit as many ideas as you wanted – over 20,000 were before the deadline came. A panel of so-called experts will winnow them down to 21, and then everyone who wants to can vote on the finalists through the site. The winning idea will net its proponent $100,000.

Is this a great country or what? When even unions must employ lotteries to interest Americans in the political economy of their own lives.

Posted Sunday, December 11th, 2005 under Uncategorized.

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