Best Of Corsair

We have some new readers, so I'm going to recycle some of the better posts I've made over the past six months:

RZA is Crazy

The Corsair has many media obsessions but one of his favorites is RZA. The RZA is crazy. Nutso. He eats ungodly amounts of colloidal silver, even proffering it to his offspring need we say more?

One day RZA and his babies are going to turn blue from a colloidal silver overdose and then people will take me seriously. Anyhoo: here's what he had to say to FHM:

FHM: How strong is your Kung Fu?

RZA: "Strong, but I've never used it. One of my uncles trains CIA agents. He was offended I was learning from someone else, so he showed me this one move. He said, 'I could cripple you.' I believed him but he had to prove it. I was hurt for three months."

Okay ... leaving aside the implausibility that one of RZA's uncles is in the intelligence gathering business, how many people out there have familial relations that whisper Moon Knight-like threats. Being family is not about crippling one another. The interview concludes:

FHM: Is there an RZA sex tape out there?

RZA: I don't leave evidence like that. I form the lense with my hand, look through it and tape record with my mind.

What-the-fuck?!

Trump Loves Pennies

"I'm not a big fan of the handshake ... I think it's barbaric, shaking hands, you catch colds, you catch the flu, you catch this, you catch all sorts of things." If you identified Donald Trump as the author of this oft-repeated riff then you are dead on.

The trouble is that it doesn't mesh with a comment he made to FHM in the March issue. Check out this slice:

Trump: If I see a penny on the sidewalk, I always pick it up, because, psychologically, I want to do that."

FHM: Seriously?

Trump: Absolutely. I do it all the time. That's the way I am.

Okay, leaving aside the fact that this is utter and complete bullshit, lets zero on the whole penny-hygiene thing. Donald Trump, worth, roughly $2 billion bending over, ass akimbo, picking up Abe Lincoln's from the gritty expectorate laden Midtown streets. And yet he will not shake hands?

Priceless.

Samuel L. Jackson's Subway Nightmare

In the March 2004 FHM Magazine, Samuel L. Jackson tells this harrowing tale of the evil subway. A "very special" Corsair:

" I was riding the A train late at night. I was getting off the train and there was a woman in front of me who had some shopping bags, and one broke. I stopped, very un-New York like, and helped her pick up her stuff. When the door closed, I had one foot in the subway, and one on the platform. Luckily for me I was in the last car. As the train took off, I was snatched off by my feet and my body twisted, ripping all the shit in my knee. I was dragged along, dodging the poles and I couldn't get my shoe off. Eventually somebody pulled the emergency chord which stopped the train. I didn't find out until a year later when I was in court that the reason it took so long to pull the chord was that the guy who did was on crutches."

That was Steven Brill All Over

From James Cramer's autobiographical Confessions of a Street Addict, on mini mogul Steven Brill:

"(Brill) never did know when to quit, though, and could not bear to lose at anything. At the firm's summer outing at Brill's Westchester mansion, he divided us into teams, placing us in his pool, and insisted we play a vicious game of water polo where dunking was encouraged and expected. He relished the contact, being a head taller than just about anyone else on the opposing squad, including me. Just as I was about to score what would have been the tying goal for my team, Brill sank his teeth into my throwing arm, spouting blood into the clear water in a steady stream. As everyone looked on in horror, I could only laugh. That was Steve all over."

The Corsair is currently in the fetal position, knees touching his pronounced cheekbones, rocking himself back and forth, mumbling over and over again, "the New York media will be the end of me..."

The Corsair's Remote Control Tour Diary

There are over 500 cable channels nowadays, so who better to give you a tour of some of the major ones?

Anyhoo: 500 channels means "niche marketing." And with all those niches, things can get confusing as to what is being marketed. So, The Corsair will help the viewer through the wonderful world of cable with these pithy explanations, In Media Res:

TNT: Lousy with Middle aged Testosterone. A musky-smelling channel. Bruce Willis and Steven Seagal action flics and basketball. Big in New Jersey.

CNN: Used to be a channel for Kings and Queens and heads of state, but of late it is the channel for cranky retired people with an angry opinion on everything political ("Those libs are holding up Medicaid!"). Poor CNN: They used to wine and dine with kings and queens, but now they are laying in the gutter eating pork and beans.

Lifetime: A channel earnestly devoted to the smouldering resentments of Midwestern housewives. Husbands are to blame in most of these story lines. Anger is the predominant emotion. Hollywood has not been kind to Nancy McKeon. Hell hath no fury like Joanna Kearns scorned!

Family Channel: The channel devoted to Christians in a nuclear family with a conviction that human history has a purpose beyond this world. Halleleuia. Lots of Mary Kate and Ashley films, which, ironically, attract a very different sort of crowd than the ones that these cats are aiming after.

CNBC: This channel serves as "White Noise" for the various strip joints in the Wall Street and financial district vicinity. As your Bud Fox-like trader with a "Lawng Island" accent sips a Stoli on the rocks on his lunchbreak, sniffing his "Bolivian white Powder" ("Vitamin C"), getting a "friction dance" from his favorite "dancer," he can look over her shoulder, casually, and catch a brief glance at just how the markets are doing, and get a gauge on when he should return to the office.

A&E: An elderly folks network with lots of Murder, She Wrote, and "original" films like "Horatio Hornblower," for viewers who can remember their glorious years of service in the British Imperial navy policing those hectic colonial ports.

(more Remote Control Tour Diary)

Tyson versus Wesley Snipes

Tyson vs Snipes

"One night after (Mike Tyson's girlfriend) Hope had visited MT (Mike Tyson) in his LA apartment, he told me to follow her. She had left earlier than usual, telling him that she had to visit a friend. He wanted me to find out where she went, if she made any calls, if she talked to anybody, everything that she did after leaving him that night. So I grabbed the black Lamborghini Diablo and kept a safe distance ... At Roscoes, a soulfood hangout in downtown LA, she parked, got out of the car and walked over to a black Lexus ... her friend turned out to be actor Wesley Snipes.

"(Tyson) was paging me. I called him back to let him know the situation ... Less than ten minutes later, he pulled up in a yellow Testarosa, accompanied by a new bodyguard Anthony Pitts. Anthony was a former professional football player, stood about 6'7, and weighed in around 250. Tyson jumped out of the Ferrari.

"...When Hope caught sight of him, she practically fell out of Snipes lap and onto the floor. The actor froze then waved a hand"'Now, Mike, now, Mike, we can do this together. I dont want no problem.

"'Let's go into the bathroom!' Tyson snapped.

"When I returned from the parking lot, I noticed Anthony was blocking the bathroom door. A couple minutes later we heard a big noise inside, and then Tyson emerged alone.

"After he was gone, I cracked open the bathroom door. Wesley Snipes was sitting against the far wall, head tilted to one side, unconscious (italics mine)."

The Inner Ring, by Rudy Gonzalez, p.58-9

I suppose Time Magazine's Joel Stein is an okay kind of guy. I've never met him. He seems to have a bit of a wit, however dry, for someone who works at Time Magazine, the world's capitol of gravitas and all that. In the end, there is nothing wrong with Joel Stein that a robust multivitamin couldn't remedy. But what was he thinking when Trio TV gave him the gig of a lifetime? I mean, who wants to watch endless hours of Battle of the Network Stars?

I mean, seriously, who even watched Battle of the Network stars back then, when Telly Savalas and Gabe Kaplan had juice? Not me: and I was ever the hip 6 year old. Who loves ya, baby?

Now, If Laura Zalaznick of Trio Tv called The Corsair tommorrow (call me, Laura, call ... me ...) and asked: What low budget high quality shows would you program for Trio TV? Remember, we only have a fraction of the network budgets, but we want high quality. I would say: Laura, have you ever read my blog? I am all about low budget high quality.

Anyhoo: These are some of my picks:

Dummy. Gritty 70s drama of urban social decline -- thanks, Ed Koch! Asshole! Koch turned NYC into a Guns n Roses video, with Mr. Brownstone creeping around Central Park in a raincoat with nothing on underneath. Get this plot, though, peeps: LeVar Burton plays a deaf and dumb mute who is framed for the death of a prostitute (Kuta Kinte, you are a framed man!). But will we get justice from the man? Will a young Paul Sorvino get him redemption when he cannot even communicate with his client? Or will "Dummy" just become another urban statistic on the Koch street? Despite the overall bleakness, this a very, very cool social commentary.


Masterpiece Theater: Last of the Mohicans. No, not the cheesy Michael Mann MTV video with Daniel Day Lewis and Madeline Stowe giving florid, overproduced romance. No, this one was the real deal. The French and Indian War, my little pomegranates. Colonial wars involving trappers and Native Americans dressed in coonskin and caribou, muskets at the ready. The Massachusetts Bay Colonizers and what not. Dodgy alliances, snow and muskets -- we're talking the French and Indian War, people, work with me here. The drama, fo' shizit. For some bizarre reason the Masterpiece Theater programs made in the 70s -- arguably the best programming of all time -- languish in someone's vault, uncherished and unsung. American history geek? (raises hand sheepishly) "adsum".

Alice: I've always wondered if this was a comedy or a tragedy, or perhaps that significant 70s artistic construct, the "dramedy." Single mom who sings Bradway showtunes working to support her kid in Arizona on diner tips. Fuck! I'd imagine that singing "There's a New Girl In Town" ought to get those coffee refil tips rising into the stratosphere, like an Irving Berlin tune, out there in Phoenix. I'm sure the serial killer truck drivers on their way to the Pacific Northwest on one hours sleep, a thermos of coffee, a gullet full of crank and a meat cleaver at the ready are really up and around to hearing broadway medley's at Mel's Diner, no? ... No

Better yet, Alice Hyatt, thou repository of Standards of the Great White Way, stick with Florence "Flo" Castleberry's crafty encomium: a leathery oversexed outlook on truckstop flings and a pipin hot "kiss my grits!" to the cheapskates.

Imagine if that show were pitched nowadays. Only David Lynch would finish such a scenario. Without the laugh track, Alice could be an American drama drenched in pathos, like Dreiser's Sister Carrie. Take away the laugh track, throw in some creepy Lynchian music, and you've turned a dramedy into Americana horror. Alice would end up on nthe evening news and Lil Tommy would be shackin up with dingy Vera faster than Mel could re-lard his pork chops. No ... Alice doesn't live here anymore.

Don't even get us started on the great Vic Tayback (god bless his clogged arteries) banging the pick up bell with his spatula, like the true character actor he was (it's those little flourishes, which i like to call "Taybacks"). Dating those seedy Phoenix chicks well past their expiration date. Americana horror is the genre. May Mel Sharples rest in a greasy kind of peace. Pink uniforms, ah, Mel, read much de Beauvoir?

Rich Man Poor Man: Observe Nick Nolte before the fermented grape robbed him of his marginal looks, then again, there is charm in Nolte's whiskey ravaged grim visage. If Nolte can be a star then so, dammit, can anyone. Earns props for Teachers, though. He counts.

Poldark: This cult British tv series is quite habit forming. Incredible. Just incredible. A period piece that is a cross between Wuthering Heights, the Mayor of Casterbridge and Le Liaisons Dangereuse. You get sucked in to this costume drama that is one part soap opera and one part high art.

Assorted Good Times episodes: Come on, you know you had a crush on Wilona when you were kid, don't you; or, if you were a girl, Bookman the janitor was your long cold drink of water. What, you never saw a black man doing a John Wayne impression, pilgrim? And you know in your heart Wilona saved Janet Jackson from falling down the elevator shaft trying to escape her mom who beat her with a hot iron just before she became Willis' girl, then Cleo on Fame, then Ms. deBarge.

The one where Michael gets drunk off some dodgy "health tonic" was a classic ("Get Vita Brite and sleep tonight ...*passes out*). The there was the time Michael joined a gang. Oh, what about the one where Thelma almost married this bigamist Nigerian. Crazy! What about that pimpy guy "Lennay," who always sold hot appliances from out of his coat. So was the episode when James has hypertension. So was ... hey ... was this a comedy or what?

Cinema Paradiso. The best work of art on friendship I've ever encountered. A glorious film.

Fellini's Satyricon. A pagan work. Un-be-fucking-lievable. The Rablasian Fellini walks us through Roman antiquity as imagined crossed with a science fiction movie. There can never be anyone as Felliniesque as Fellini.

The Big Blue Marble: My favorite show as a kid, if you must know.

Carl Sagan's Cosmos: Okay, so in the madcap world of astrophysics Sagan's hypotheses are probably all outmoded already. Right? So what? So is Ptolemy's Almagest, and yet I still read it in college. The provocative thinking is worth another looksie. This series was the bomb! (looks around sheepishly, then raises hand, "question: who is the PBS geek"?)Classics do not get outmoded.

Chespirito. This show was a mystery to me: Why would a grown Latin man want to go on tv dressed like a bumble bee with a big "CH" affixed to his paunch. Subtitle it and put it on Tri. We'd all like to know what the people on that endless laugh track find so funny.

Stoned, the Afterschool Special with Scott Baio. "Super Stoned Jack," was the scariest introduction that most of us had to the world of the sweet leaf. If I were stoned I would never go out in a row boat. Well, not after seeing this little chestnut. Put it on Trio so we can all laugh at the "reefer madness." Just say yes.

Fame the TV Series: Why are there not repeats on VH1 of this show already? When you say low budget and high quality I think .. right here's where you start paying for it ... with pain ... and sweat. The show of young, artistic people struggling for their moment to shine is about as American as it gets. Whatever happened to that sexy cello player who wouldn't give anyone the time of day, Lori Singer.

Cries and Whispers by Ingmar Bergman. If Black Stallion is the most beautifully shot film, then this is number two. All natural lighting. Bergman uses a fade to red to seperate scenes, mimicking the inner membrane of our eyelids. About as fucking intense as art can get. And halfway through this film about communication and treachery and time past, Bergman dissolves a reconcilliation scene with a Bach Sarabande in the most mysterious way.

Schoolhouse Rock: That Figure Eight. Mysterious, melancholy and mathematically instructional. Time will never again be so mundane. A strong influence on The Corsair's childhood.

The Black Stallion: Those fabulous Coppollas! This is perhaps the most beautiful filmed movie ever.

The Gore Vidal-Bill Buckley Debate-Fight It was in the heart of the 60s: it was the polarized political center of the 60s. The left and the right clash violently on national television. A classic. I just finished reading Vidal's Burr. Excellent.

Woody Allen's Teleplay: Don't Drink the Water. One of the most interesting experiments on television ever. Woody Allen directs and writes a teleplay starring Michael J Fox and the kid who played Blossom. Shaky handheld camera follows a grown Michael J. Fox as slowly becomes involved with the much younger woman. Sound familiar?

Kramer vs. Kramer. The first dramatic statement of the Baby Boomers. A film of the first water. Young married couple breaks apart. Wife leaves shallow workaholic husband and baby. Goes out West. Comes back revitalized. Husband fights custody. Bach and Vivaldi heighten drama. And the courtroom scene where Meryl Streep slowly dissolves into tears and forced composure are among the best acting you will ever see.

Okay, so those are some of my Trio picks. And you have to admit it is a hell of a lot better than Battle of the Network Stars.