Digital Refrain

Illustration by Maddison Bond

A Satire by Dave Murphy

It’s four in the morning, I’m staring at my laptop. It’s mostly done but I still don’t know where it ends or how it began. Some point to a chance photo op with presidential hopeful Rick Santorum at a White House Correspondents event. And some tell stories about a follow-up dinner at New York’s Strip House. Mr. Santorum enjoyed the signature steak. Lindsay Lohan picked at baby greens, and asked about the intersecting roles of media, politics and religion. She had a particular interest in universalism, and asked if he knew about Pentecostal snake handlers. Santorum supposedly replied, “I’m not really sure about that. Are you seeing anybody right now?”

That was a few months ago, before the teacup tempest became a perfect storm. I could continue setting the table but there’s no real reason. Anybody with a TV or internet pulse already knows. Her quiet meetings with friends turned into organized events. She discovered Kierkegaard and tried to improve on his sayings. She had lunch with Ann Coulter. Lindsay doesn’t go anywhere now without her flock of Lindytes, adoring young women in their white muslin shifts. And her advisers, hard-eyed hacks from failed campaigns and polemic wars. They’re all singing the tune of some fucked-up cult she’s invented called Friends of the End, and Rolling Stone’s on my ass to write about it. And I just want to get the hell away from the lower 48 and find a bomb shelter in Alaska with a couple cases of cheap red wine and a blanket and a pillow and ride the damned thing out until it’s safe to come up for air.

How did things go so terribly wrong? How does a simple quest for spirituality lead to societal conflict so utterly toxic that we dare invoke Armageddon? Nobody has a straight answer. Time Warner is throwing around theoretical numbers in the hundreds of millions for a weekly show and Lohan is still saying no, still uploading her doomsday prophecies on YouTube.

I felt like Marlow in Heart of Darkness, in the midst of the incomprehensible. I needed to reach out to those who had been banished from her inner circle, to tell my own friends, to sound out theories until they grew weary and stopped taking the late night calls. I was fascinated by a list of “guidances” she scrawled on note paper, since copied by the Lindytes at Kinkos everywhere, laminated and hung close to their hearts, brief lines in a child’s loopy glitter pen scrawl. The original document is said to be locked away somewhere, nobody will say where. Lindsay herself refuses to discuss it except to say it’s nothing. But her followers take time out of each day for their communication relaxations, discussing the six phrases endlessly:

If you love something, own it! Life is not a problem to be solved but the poison cannot hurt them. Sisterhood is the brotherhood of man. War is worth it! You may not like me now, but you’ll love me in the end. The horrible flowers.

Why the crossed-out words, and what about the flowers? I was in the middle of it now, with the strange world of existence and shadowy secrets closing in on all sides.

In March she flew to Mauritania for a meeting with an undercover Christian. There on the parched plains, in some stitched-together tent, plans must have been laid. In late April, another mystery flight with a trusted spiritual adviser and an elite security unit. She met with the leaders of FEMEN at a secret location in the Ukraine. Girls no older than herself, some even younger. But they are trying to organize a revolution. And her stunning appearance at the Mayweather-Cotto fight at the MGM Grand last month as she waltzed down the aisle, holding up a sign with the words, “Knock out the Devil!” They had to form a cordon to get her out of there.

And then two weeks ago, arrested by federal agents. From everything that’s been told, she gave them nothing, just flashed a peace sign. She hadn’t been seen again until she totaled her black Porsche on Pacific Coast Highway last Saturday. Lindsay was driving with an assistant and slammed into the back of an 18-wheeler. She told the cops that the trucker cut her off. What nobody mentioned was what was found inside the big rig – electronic jamming devices, an interrogation cage, and a tiny Smart-1 Freedom Jet. Days later, the authorities were looking to “clear a few things up.” LiLo responded by calling her travel agent.

I caught up with young Henry Hopper outside an AA meeting. He’s a strange and troubled showbiz kid who spent a couple days with Lindsay earlier in the year. He kept looking around, shifty-eyed. “I shouldn’t be telling you this but LiLo bought one of those teacup dogs online a few months back. She really loved the little freak and named it LiLo. And then it went and died a week later. Those things are just inbred little runts.” He finished his brief story and stared at me, as if it should mean something.

“Is that it?” I don’t have much faith in showbiz kids who call themselves abstract impressionists.

He stared back, angrily stubbed out his cigarette and stalked off. “You writers are all alike. Asshole.”

Where was I headed? Was I on a figurative tramp steamer, traveling back to the earliest beginnings of her journey, to where her simple joys were snuffed, to where unreasonable expectations were formed, to where seedlings were planted under her pale translucent skin? I penetrated deeper into the heart of darkness, reaching out to a former publicist who said, “He put it in her, man. That Santorum dude put the God-thing in her”.

I spoke to her mother Dina, who disagreed. “Lindsay has always been a child of God.” There is an element of truth in all stories. Lindsay’s maternal great-grandfather was John L. Sullivan, co-founder of Long Island’s pro-life movement. So there’s that.

In her most recent YouTube communication relaxation, Lindsay stared into the camera and said, “We are friends of the end and our misery will pour down for 40 days and nights. I’m only happy when it rains.” And then an eerie smile. The downfall dancer.

Like Kurtz, they followed her, they took all words as more than they were and attached immense significance. She held a great gathering at Elysian Park and asked them to believe in the end of days, and one of the Lindytes handed her a ceremonial horn that looked as if it were carved from a giant tusk, and brightly colored feathers and ribbons hung from it. She blew a long mournful note and the crowd shuffled their feet and stomped and swayed, and their voices which began as low grumblings grew into tumult and shrieking, and unintelligible cries.  And they say that some had snakes with them, and strychnine in jars.

I took this assignment with a heavy heart. This is not the stuff of resurgent film studios or peaty bogs. It’s the cautionary last chapter of a career and life gone sorrowfully wrong. I remember Lindsay as a grinning imp on the set of ‘The Parent Trap’, all freckles and cat eyes and young hopes. It was only a convenient snapshot of course. She was pushed and pulled relentlessly by the impossible forces of unconscionable parents. She could have been anything.

I pushed desperately for an interview with Lindsay herself, I wanted to give her a chance to tell her story without agenda, unvarnished and true. It was not to be. I caught up with her at LAX, she was marching toward the international departure gates in her sheer muslin shift. Her troop of followers stopped behind her patiently.

“You know I’ve been trying to reach out.” I didn’t know how else to begin. I felt miserable. We were friends once.

She shook her head slowly from one side to the other. “It’s too late, David. The birds are in the air.”

And she stared into my soul and I saw battlefields and armies and the dust of childhood dreams. And she smiled, a narrow white line of teeth that sent icy fingers down my back. And turned and was on her way again, her diaphanous gown floating behind her like a cloud, and her determined young women following in lockstep, their filmy white garments also billowing. The horrible flowers. I watched until they disappeared from view. And let out a long breath. It was time to to pack the things I needed most, and to head to the Big White.

It’s 4:30 the morning. I’m staring at the screen of my laptop in a small windowless room. I don’t like it any better than I did thirty minutes ago but I promised them a deadline. The generator hasn’t kicked in yet, so I guess the world is still up there. I desperately want to sleep. I attach the document to an email, and press send, and put my earplugs back in. I’ve been listening to an old Leonard Cohen song all night.

“Then she gets you on her wavelength. And she lets the river answer. And you want to travel with her. And you want to travel blind.”

Illustration by Mary Grace Ewald

by Andrew Rosin

If you’re like me, I’m sure you know the popular podcasts of podcasting. Your Wednesday Thursday Friday with Marc Maron, your the Nerdism with Chris Hardwick, and your College Basket Ball with Scott Aukerman. But these are not the most necessary podcast. These are not, dare I say, the best podcast.

They are not the Thrilling Adventure Hour.

The conceit is simple, it’s a podcast in the style of a 1940′s radio play which are segments from a popular stage show in Los Angeles written by the writing team of Ben Acker and Ben Blacker (who also hosts a necessary for creative types podcast called The Nerdist Writers Panel). Each podcast is dotted with names you know (Nathan Fillion! Alison Brie!) as well as names you should (Craig Cackowski! James Urbaniak!).

There are two major segments to every show. The first segment on the podcast was Beyond Belief, which stars Paul F. Tompkins and Paget Brewster as those married mediums Frank and Sadie Doyle. Tompkins and Brewster inhabit their roles with a brio that has to make me wonder if taking a look at The Thin Man and other Nick and Nora Charles works wouldn’t be worth my time for no particular reason. These are usually singular segments, where you will see them in various spots of trouble with pop cultural monsters, from Natalie Morales’ hipster witch to James Urbaniak’s killer clown. You can pick most any Beyond Belief and you will not be disappointed. And if John Ennis is involved? So much the better.

The second segment introduced on the podcast is “Sparks Nevada: Marshal on Mars.” Marc Evan Jackson plays the titular marshal with a grumbling charm. You can visualize the swagger of the sheriff when he says he’s from Earth, you can be charmed with the buddy cop bickering between him and pretty much everyone from Croach the Tracker, the Red Plains Rider, the barkeep (who seems to be missing the place that for which he did not want trouble in) or various bandits, citizens, and mutants throughout Mars, and you root for him to actually spit out the emotions that he’s been feeling. These are not the one-shots that Beyond Belief are, so it helps to start from the beginning, but like Sparks’ robot fists, these will hardly ever miss.

Other segments that you can’t help but enjoy include Amelia Earhart: Fearless Flyer, in which Amelia Earhart is a time traveling Aviatrix who is the first and best line of defense against the time traveling Nazis who would dare make fight World War II out of time. The Nathan Fillion collection of Jefferson Reid: Ace American, where the Calgary native plays an alternate universe Captain America, and the Sparks Nevada spinoff Cactoid Jim! King of the Martian Frontier. And the Craig Cackowski collection of The Crosstime Adventures of Colonel Tick-Tock (in which there’s an English time-traveling science hero in the days of Upstairs-Downstairs tales of English things being English) and Tales From Moonshine Holler (about a millionaire whose renounced his riches in an effort to find the legendary hobo princess).

So now that I’ve given about 560 words as to the top-notchery of the recordings of the live stage show, I have to say that the taped segments, in comparison to the live ones, fall short. Not that they’re terrible. But they’re not as laugh inducing as the live programs. I suppose I would call them merely okay. Merely.

So long story short? Is this a great podcast? Indeed. It has a remarkable batting average of greatness, and there’s really only been a few that I would consider below their standard of quality. I would give this a five out of five. Go to iTunes. Subscribe it. Get all of them. You will thank me later.

But if you’re lazy, here are my five favorite episodes.

1) Sparks Nevada: “The Piano Has Been Thinking”
2) Beyond Belief: “The Devil and Mr. Jones”
3) Beyond Belief: “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang You’re Dead.”
4) The Cross Time Adventures of Colonel Tick-Tock “The Wilde Party”
5) Jefferson Reid: Ace American “1″

Marsh Sunrise by Christus Murphy

by Dave Murphy

Every August Bank Holiday, an annual rite of passage takes place in Wales. Sturdy young men and women, and some aged ones as well, come from near and far to a peaty bog where aroma lies thick upon the senses. They compete in a tradition that has been honored since 1976, the World Bog Snorkelling Championship. This year there’s an interloper or so some say. Michael Phelps, winner of 16 Olympic medals in more traditional forms of athletic swimming, insists that he’s simply looking for a new challenge. Some longtime residents of the area say different.

At pubs and gathering spots, the tone of discussion is dark, and not easily shared with writers who have come for a visit. If you’re a Murphy however, there’s a longer and deeper connection to the land and those who love it. And while this particular visit was brief, I came away with enough to know there is no black and white, no pure right or wrong. There is only an uncertain portent of what will come this summer at Waen Rhydd, and marshy grass and decaying leaves, and the quiet cold water.

I should probably set a few things straight. The English spell snorkeling with two “Ls” for some reason. Also, my own third nephew – Conor Murphy from County Armagh across the sea from Wales – won the championship back-to-back in 2008 and 2009. A minute and thirty-eight seconds, straight down a 60-foot trench and back. And he beat 170 others and won a hundred dollars to boot. So there is that, and a sense of familial pride. Conor’s not your average swamp creature though, he’s a triathlete who only did bog as a lark for a couple years. So I guess that’s the other thing, where conflict comes and sticks to the sticking-place.

I didn’t take this assignment because I have any particular horse in the race. I told Graydon I was tired and spent after Bombay. I do know marshes and watery ways however, as the incessant texts and emails reminded. I grew up an easy walk from a New England wetlands, and my father has long maintained a summer home at the edge of a Cape Cod marsh that runs directly to the ocean. On high tides the sea comes right up to the edge of the property near a comfortable deck, a good place to drink wine and swat mosquitoes. But tromping through the muck doesn’t make me part of the local set at Llanwrtyd Wells. I knew I’d need to go to the source. I needed to talk to Phelps in person.

He wasn’t easy to find, hadn’t been at his beloved Meadowbrook facility in Baltimore for weeks. I landed at Southampton and rented a Fiat 500 which is a great little car until you get lost and stop caring about great little cars. But I arrived in Hampshire nonetheless, still late afternoon and a splitting headache from the flight. An 18th century stone cottage stood at the edge of Pennington Marsh and further out was Michael, churning through the reeds. It was the first time I had seen him since I wrote the bong expose for Vanity Fair, the one that put his Kelloggs endorsement in the crapper. Still, he grinned at me like he does, teeth chattering and skin nearly blue under bits of grass and dirt, and we headed back to the cottage to talk.

Bog snorkelling as we know it, is a recent cultural phenomenon with its banging pie plates and cowbells and spectators in bright costumes, and even mountain bikes plunging headlong into the glorious stench. Its history however is long and serpentine. Owain Glyndwr’s ancient anarchists used marsh reeds to take in air as they hid from the King’s soldiers, and the Celtic people remain a mysterious and insular lot with their polytheism and worship of nature, their poets and shape-shifters.

Michael changed into dry clothes and we were fed a hearty muskrat stew prepared by his lady friend Elin, a singer with a local pub band. And afterward we sat by the fire with a good dark ale and finally talked about motivation and purpose. “I swim,” he said, “it’s what I do and what I have always done. Lately I’ve been bothered by chlorine. After all these years.” And he just shrugged as if there were nothing else about it. And stared with a sense of melancholy into the fire. And Elin came and put a quiet hand on his shoulder, each of us alone with our thoughts.

We had bangers and eggs and rashers in the morning and Elin went into town for a band rehearsal and Michael walked out to the marsh and I caught up on sleep. Those English fry-up breakfasts can send you right back into a torpor and I didn’t mind at all. And later, got ready for yet another flight back, and walked out to say so long.

Michael was powering through the pickerel weed and marl with that inimitable butterfly stroke and I yelled ,“you do know they only allow the dog paddle or two arms straight out in front?” And he laughed and I knew he shared a kindred spirit with the good people of Waen Rhydd. Michael’s quest has always been elusive, like Hemingway on the plains of the Serengeti. And I looked over my shoulder as I walked away, and saw the kid who swam from one end of Baltimore to the other. Come Bank Day in August, the locals will witness something to remember. Michael flipped at the end of the trench and pushed off from the muddy bank, and headed for home.

by Dave Murphy 

United Artists Corporation (UA) appears to have been given a new lease on life by a consortium of actors, musicians and business leaders, looking to return the once thriving studio to the original founders’ vision. Actors Nicholas Cage, Meryl Streep, and Scarlett Johansson, along with indie director Jim Jarmusch, business magnate Sir Richard Branson, singer Taylor Swift and pop producer Will.i.am, are reportedly the forces behind the revamping of a brand nearing the century mark, although sources have described the situation as ‘evolving and fluid’.

Apart from a degree of name recognition, UA’s long and winding road is unfamiliar to many in the digital generation. Silent film stars Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, William S. Hart, and director D.W. Griffith introduced the enterprise in 1919, with the idea of making important movies and controlling their distribution. Although the industry was still in its infancy, the early superstars sensed that the rapidly developing studio system would soon clamp down on the independent or entrepreneurial spirit. And so, the great experiment was born.

The early UA years were choppy but movies began to filter out, hits like Mary Pickford’s Pollyanna (1920), D.W. Griffith’s Orphans of the Storm (1921), and Douglas Fairbanks’ Thief of Baghdad (1924). Many of Buster Keaton’s films were released through the studio, as were the movies of newcomer Samuel Goldwyn. By the early 1930’s, the studio was riding a wave of success with titles including Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936). Time is relentless however, and stars aged and producers moved on and by the 1940’s the company served mainly as a distributor.

In 1951, producers Arthur Krim and Robert Benjamin took over and a new era of productivity was born. Releases included the African Queen (1951), West Side Story (1961), and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963). The studio was eventually bought by TransAmerica and the James Bond franchise was introduced, along with Sergio Leone’s iconoclastic spaghetti westerns, and Academy Award winners, including Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Coming Home (1978). The 1980’s brought a series of Kirk Kerkorian/MGM debacles and the studio finally became a specialty arm under the leadership of producer Bingham Ray. In 2006, Scientologist Tom Cruise took the reins and released a couple of forgettable action pictures, before losing interest.

The possibility of retrofitting UA has been met by a mixture of hope and skepticism. There are already fissures forming, with Cage and Jarmusch pushing to bring actor/artist Crispin Glover into the fold. When reached for comment, Taylor Swift demurred, admitting, “I actually don’t know who he is.” Additionally, Branson has expressed a desire to merge the studio with his own well known conglomerate, which would result in a United Virgins group. Regardless, most of those involved will be hosting a garden party in Bel Air in late May, and will likely unveil their plans at that point. The event will be catered by one of L.A.’s hottest new restaurants, Test Kitchen, and will benefit the Runyon Canyon Bird Rescue.

A cut and paste version of the start-up’s mission statement recently circulated through the internet but has since been taken down. According to those who read it, Nic Cage remarked that pop culture has become a conflagration of all known media expression, comparing the current studio system to Japanese long-liner fishing boats. The document also revealed potential remakes, including Broken Blossoms (1919) for Ms. Swift, Tess of the Storm Country (1924) for Ms. Streep, and The Bat Whispers (1930) for Mr. Cage. If Crispin Glover joins the company, he will most likely reprise John Garfield’s lead role in the seminal boxing classic Body and Soul (1947).

There comes the inevitable point of introspection in an artist’s life, the question of a deeper purpose. For some, it is a lifelong battle. Jim Jarmusch recently appeared on the Charlie Rose show, revealing that his lengthy absence from directing had much to do with an obsession with a never released United Artists film entitled Long John Cabin (1935). The isolationist drama starred Wallace Beery as an agoraphobic woodsman, bedeviled by incontinence, and was helmed by writer Dalton Trumbo in his directorial debut. The last known copy of the film turned to dust in a lonely warehouse, some years back.

Along with MGM, United Artists has operated out of office buildings for decades now. The former Pickford-Fairbanks Studios, later known as Samuel Goldwyn Studios, has long been in disrepair, and the original historic buildings are due to be razed. Mr. Cage has expressed interest in building a new state of the art facility at the abandoned Brew 102 beer factory off Interstate 5. The site was also once home to El Aliso, the ancient sycamore tree that was the heart of the Gabrielino village of Yang-Na – the original Los Angeles village.

There are bound to be hurdles facing the new ownership group, given that current holding company MGM is reluctant to part with UA until all remaining assets have been stripped out. Meryl Streep recently appeared on the Ellen show, hinting that the company may simply call themselves ‘United Artistes’ in order to avoid entanglements. There have also been reported rifts with Will.i.am, who is said to be concerned about a lack of focus on new media offshoots. However, with Hollywood’s first great unification of artists nearing the century mark, the promise of new life and relevancy, is simply too enticing to ignore.