Jim Henson is a genius.  A latter day Kafka who figured out as well as anyone how to speak clearly and loudly his personal subversion using the voice and medium of a dominant culture to do it.  Think about Jim Henson’s actual childhood with the notion that most people’s adult creativity taps into “meaning and aesthetic” experiences they had between 6 and 12 years old.  Henson was born in 1936.  In *Greenville Mississippi*.    Can you even imagine Greenville Mississippi in 1936?  Think “O Brother Where Art Thou“.  A completely different world.

In late childhood he moved to Maryland near DC (in the late 40′s) and, as a Christian Scientist, he didn’t have a TV until late into adolescence – a moment that he recalls as being the “biggest event of his adolescence”.  This means that as a kid, he almost certainly got most of his “culture candy” from radio and live performances.  Both of which meant a huge link back to vaudeville and the itinerant folk culture that predated mass media.

In the early 60′s as a young creative, he is almost certainly dealing with 50-something producers and directors who, themselves, were weaned on straight vaudeville (see Sullivan, Ed) and who couldn’t imagine early TV as anything other than a camera pointed at some form of live stage event. One thing he noticed that was attractive about puppets was that they could be used to greater effect with “slapstick violence” than human actors.  You can imagine the belly laugh from a 50-ish producer when he saw early muppets acting out an old seltzer and two-by-four bit he remembered sneaking-into as a kid.  “I like it Henson, you’re an odd kid, but damn those puppets are funny!”

Nietzsche hit the nail on the head when he said that most new powers proceed by masks.  To be sure, Henson himself had to have been personally affected by the meaning and aesthetic of the radio programs and live shows he experienced as a kid in Mississippi, and that contributes a great deal to his future visions.  At the same time, as he was a young man trying to figure out what ideas “worked” – that is, what ideas would be accepted by the guys making decisions at the TV shows – surely he discovered through trial and error if nothing else that the vaudeville sensibility (particularly when combined with the natural possibilities of muppets) were more successful than other efforts.  And so he wore his masks.  And, as a consequence, had his opportunity to “smuggle” his own ideas (both content and form) into the mass audience.

For kids growing up on the Muppets, none of this was evident.  None of us were able to really link back to vaudeville or early TV (except as the subtle interpolation of its evolutionary impact on contemporary tv and as the vague hints of parents walking into see Captain Kangeroo and muttering something about Howdy Doody).  Surely the abstract forms that “just work” on human beings – the basics of comedy – were always present and to the extent that they were being “carried” by vaudeville forms, fine.  But while the much older crowd (our parents and grandparents) were able to see mostly only the reflections of their own childhood, we saw everything at an equal intensity and, therefore, absorbed Hensons own content at a relatively much higher rate.  Its like the old lady – young lady picture.  If you’ve been told that it is one image it is much harder to see the other, but if you’ve never seen it before *both* are equally visible.  Encrypted in plain sight.  For those with ears to hear.

Like everyone else, Henson was just looking for a way to have his spirit and ideals heard and (at best) affirmed by other people.  Like everyone else, he had to do so through the voice, image and medium of a majority culture.  But, like Kafka, Melville, and all the other heterogenous hijackers of majority culture on behalf of a “minor language” his spirit and ideals were something that couldn’t be said out loud “in public” (certainly during the 50′s and most of the 60′s).  Just check out his The Cube.  Intense and brilliant – but limited to a tiny audience in the middle of the night.  So he had to figure out how to get as large an audience as possible with as much signal as possible.  And he was great at it.

If you are like me and the Muppets taste of mountain dew and pop rocks, or riding your huffy (sans helmet to be sure) for some atari at your friends house, then Yo Gabba Gabba feels like a Mr. T t-shirt.  Like everyone, the good folks at Yo Gabba Gabba  can only take what they know (and largely that means what they experienced from 6 – 12) as their base and foundation.   And they have found a way to take 70′s kid iconography and present them to 21st century kids and their parents in a fashion that remixes old and new and has captured the unconscious at a level of the Muppets.  Unlike say Barney or Teletubbies, Yo Gabba Gabba smuggles in a lot of the values and spirit from that previous generation of saboteurs (including bringing guys like Paul Williams back into the fray – just to make sure that we get the message).  It is clear, to me, that the Yo Gabba Gabba guys are conscious members of the “Rainbow Conspiracy” and that every episode should be viewed through that lens.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Why are there so many songs about rainbows
And what’s on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
And rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we’ve been told and some choose to believe it
I know they’re wrong, wait and see.
Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers and me.

Who said that every wish would be heard and answered
when wished on the morning star?
Somebody thought of that
and someone believed it,
and look what it’s done so far.
What’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing?
And what do we think we might see?
Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection,
the lovers, the dreamers and me.

All of us under its spell,
we know that it’s probably magic….

Have you been half asleep
and have you heard voices?
I’ve heard them calling my name.
Is this the sweet sound that calls the young sailors?
The voice might be one and the same.
I’ve heard it too many times to ignore it.
It’s something that I’m supposed to be.
Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection,
the lovers, the dreamers and me.

If *all* that Henson did during his life was smuggle this song into the deep unconscious and meaning/value structures of an entire generation of children (listened to in the validating warm hearth of home with at least the passive and frequently active support of adults, and from the lips of beloved non-threatening yet authority-peer kermit, and then reinforced by all sorts of cultural notables (with particular affects to make sure we were getting the message)) then he did more than almost any culture warrior.  Of course, he did much more than that.

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Ok, lets play a game.  First, get high.  With me still?  Good.  Now, spin up an episode of Lost.  Its best to have 2-3 episodes to run through, but one will do.  Take your time – we’ll wait.  Great.   Now, press Play and as you are watching, ask yourself: “Which 70′s TV show is this from?”

Lets face it, every TV show is better high.  And Lost is better than most.  Time and Memory are favorite subjects of the higher perspective and Lost has proven better than nearly every Television show at playing with them.  But one of the things that just jumps out at you when you are critiquing Lost from a different angle is its position and vector in the history and evolution of Television itself.

Every camera angle, every character archetype, every line of dialogue.  The lighting, the plot points, the design and style, the references.  All resonating like a tuning fork with the history of TV (particularly of the 70′s).  Didn’t I see that shot in Hawaii Five-0?  Or was it Magnum PI?  There is more than a bit of MacGyver in there (don’t clip the red wire!) and plenty of Six Million Dollar Man.

So, OK, Lost partakes of the vision, view and pacing of the Great American Action Show.  But look closer – you can also see Dallas.  Yep, there it is, in that scene with Charles Widmore.  Did he just threaten to cut Desmond out of his will if he didn’t leave Pamela Barnes alone?  Dramatic Archetypes dancing across the stage.  Its a Soap Opera out there.  Jack and Sawyer and Kate and Juliet and Michael and Jin and Sun swirl around plotlines that are pulled straight from the Young and the Restless or maybe Ally McBeal.

So what is going on here?  Is it just the logical consequence of people doing what they know?  Projecting the forms, content and tropes of the media they absorbed as kids on their living-room floor onto their own creative visions?  Yes.   But that is part of a much bigger story.  Lost is a form of media fusion.  It combines elements from mystery (what is going on) with elements from a variety of dramatic forms (soap opera, action adventure) and links them together with a nice dose of whatever the heck “The Twilight Zone” was (realist surrealism?) in a sexual union of different forms that each evolved in different environments – the long linkage between the radio soap and the female audience and the pulp novel, action-adventure and the male audience.  The resulting spawn is something new.  Something more attractive and compelling than that which came before it, and possibly capable of doing more.

And this is where the higher critique gets truly interested.  By pressing this genetic mutation successfully, Lost presents a decisive move forward in the evolution of (media) culture.  It is a form of “remix culture” that is closer to Gilles Deleuze than to Larry Lessig.  And once you learn to recognize it, you begin to see it everywhere.  House, the Office (American version), and Battlestar are just three great examples.  Clearly constructed by people who consumed thousands of hours of Television in their formative years, they are, for those who are equipped to receive the messages, masterworks of pop media.

Which give me my highest, secret hope – that JJ Abrams and crew can make a serious move and take the sixth and final season of Lost into the waters churned by one of The Masters of the form, Alan Moore, and pull a Black Dossier, rather than, say a Dallas or even a Twin Peaks (all love to Mr. Lynch).  Lets take that island into the stratosphere JJ, Jeffrey, Damon and co.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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1. The Parallax View

And it is stellar with one enormous caveat, but we will get to that after these messages.

While basketball players are almost all genetic abnormalities, the game still happens close to human scale. No pads, skates, bats, gloves, helmets, or racquets. Close to human scale, doesn’t mean pedestrian. Everything is amped up, just a bit. And that includes the pure aesthetics of the game itself.

Regular season NBA can be tiresome. With the playoffs, every facet comes into focus. And the power of their strides and their emotions infect their fellow stoners on the couch. You realize that at least some of the inspired plays are realizations these millionaire mutants had burning a spliff and schooling their entourage on the xbox in the back of their Escalade. And their personal style. Look at the Chris ‘The Birdman’ Anderson in Denver and tell me he’s never been more than a mile high.

Even squeaky clean LeBron has his signature puff of smoke before each game. And the broadcasters know too. Taco Bell. An electronics company, Haier (pronounced ‘Higher”), and then there is Sprite. Last year’s dada-ist LeBron commercials have been replaced with a tale of sweaty suicidal urbanites. They throw their bodies together and explode in a refreshing spray, soaking their friends in their liquid martyrdom.

And while these diversions aren’t intrusive and are sometimes fun, it is the commercials that keep this stoners recommendation of the NBA Playoffs guarded. Some of the ad spots are heart wrenching buzz kills, like the ones from Hyundai. Light one up and see for yourself. If you can ignore Madison Avenue pot holes, it is a slam dunk.

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(writer’s note – sportscasters love puns, so if these puns harshed your mellow, probably best to skip it.)

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Last night, I smoked.  And it was good.  On the suggestion of a friend I watched The Natural History of the Chicken, and it was amazing.

It’s not a movie, just 60 minutes of chicken-ery (HA! get it? like “chicanery”! Ha ha! No? Okay whatever)…  Facts and anecdotes related by people who LOVE chickens, but delivered with an odd drama, unexpected gravitas… I sat gaping at the wonder of this strange little video as it totally fucked my brain inside out.  High or not, you can’t help but wonder if the featured human cast is kidding *just a little bit*.  It’s not fake, not mockumentary, but almost as if the director Mark Lewis realized that the material might get a little dry if not presented with flair.

It’s basically a PBS nature documentary…  Everybody knows that PBS continually creates some of the best Haute programming in the universe (judged by content and  tone), but TNHotC raises the bar.  There are chicken fact and chicken statistics, chicken anecdotes, chicken reenactments of chicken anecdotes!  TNHotC serves as a cordial introduction to an animal that usually passes unnoticed betwixt our jawbones and through our excretory apparatus and invites you to appreciate it’s place in human culture.  What else is there in the world of chick-umentary?

Consider this my strong recommendation to get stonier than a chicken’s gizzard and soak up the Natural History of the Chicken.

The Natural History of the Chicken on PBS

The Natural History of the Chicken on YouTube (though I would suggest watching it on your TV, for full effect)

The Natural History of the Chicken on Netflix

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The thing that most grabs my attention when I come at BSG with the right perspective isn’t themes or plot or characters, but the way that they played with “culture” and “cultural production”.  Most obviously was the way that BSG established a unique, comprehensive and coherent aesthetic.  Everything from camera angles and movement, to set decoration, soundtrack (and sound effects) and all of those great linguistic turns of phrase that just hung together as obviously part of the same aesthetic universe.  “Gods’ frakkin dammit” says Saul Tigh, and it all makes sense.  Like someone speaking Klingon or Quenya – except that like everything else in BSG it cuts perfectly, schizophrenically, close to consensus reality to blur that distance completely.  There isn’t a single person alive who, watching that particular episode, didn’t suddenly realize that *they* were a cylon.  Deep-down.  And so it flips.  Up vs. Down.  Us. vs Them.  Gaius Balthar had a better grasp on reality than we did, most of the time.

And lets not leave it there – because it certainly seemed obvious that the folks pulling the strings were fully aware both of the fact that they were shooting a TV show and that they were shooting a TV show that a lot of us spent considerable time watching at a very tender age.  How many people had a creeping sensation that when Adama was handing his admirals badges to Lt. Hoshi in the penultimate episode (and Apollo was handing President reigns over to the shades-wearing lawyer) that a spin-off was in the works?  How was that?  What part of our 70′s and 80′s addled collective consciousness was triggered to draw that conclusion from that set of affects?  The same ones that have been programmed to know when the laugh track should go off when Chandler cracks his dutiful wise?  Or that knows that you clip the red wire on Lost / MacGuyver explosives?  I know that dropping a few notes from the Old Series theme song is a Cheap Trick, but exactly who is the target audience of a modified version of All Along the Watchtower?  Web nerds could spend days trying to do a close fit of lyrics to plot lines (and largely failing), but those of us who were just trying to hold onto the couch simply had to deal with the fact that a mysteriously familiar song that carried oddly appropriate emotional resonance for those of us who happened to be cylons.

Nation, there is still a lot of work to be done, but BSG set some new standards and I, for one, look forward to Caprica and watching for that glorious day when we wake up and can no longer tell what is real.

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