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3.11.05
Culturally Speaking #56: A Lot to Say About Just a Few Things
By Sarah Stodola
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Anybody else notice how boring it has become to look at the Times Bestsellers List of late? I mean, yes, yes, I know, people like the Da Vinci Code and Mitch Albom...
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Dear
old Fez is closing. This is the place that gave me my first source
of income in this great big scary city. It is the place that introduced
me to New York nightlife. It is the place where I learned how to
be a badass to people who deserved it. It is the 
place
that taught me how to wear all black. It's the place where I learned
how to make and drink cosmopolitans, mojitos, and martinis. It is
the place that exposed me to Kiki and Herb, in all the ways a person can
be exposed as such. It is the place where I actually worked the
shows of Norah Jones, Echo and the Bunnymen, Ryan Adams, Rufus Wainwright;
in a room that only holds 175 people.
For a last hurrah, writer Jonathan Ames is hosting a tribute that will feature many a reader and writers from this humble downtown and Brooklyn. Here's the info (in the first person because Ames wrote it and I haven't bothered to paraphrase)...
On Friday, March 11th, I've put together a show to say good bye to the Fez nightclub, which is shutting down. The show is called "Farewell, My Lovely: A Tribute to the Fez."
From 1992 to 1994, I worked the door at the Fez, and from 1993 to 2001, I had many shows there. It's a great space and it's a terrible shame for audiences and performers that it will be closing.
So, this coming Friday, March 11th, the doors will open at 8pm, the show will start around 9pm, and the cover charge is $15. The show will last about two hours, perhaps a little longer; you can order dinner and drinks during the performance.
Fez under Time Cafe
380 Lafayette Street @ Great Jones
New York, NY 10003
Call 212.533.7000 for Reservations
I will host the evening and tell a story and the following incredible list of people will be performing (though not in this order):
Zero Boy -- comedian
Amy Sohn -- writer
The Galinsky Brothers -- performance artists
Cynthia Hopkins -- musician
David Leslie -- performance artist
Jessi Klein -- comedian
Patrick Bucklew, the Mangina -- self-explanatory
Reverend Jen & Revered Jen, Jr. -- comedian and dog side-kick
Murray Hill -- comedian
John Hodgman -- writer
The Elementals -- unusual puppets
Alien Comic -- comedian
Hal Sirowitz -- poet
Julie Atlas Muz -- burlesque artist
Michael Portnoy -- musician/performance artist
Edgar Oliver -- poet
* * *
By golly, this is a true story: an esteemed author in Canada suffered an injury a few years ago that left him unable to read. But he still writes. I guess it's first drafts only for this guy...
* * *
The
problem with Matt Taibbi’s dreadful piece in the New York Press,
titled “The
52 Funniest Things About the Upcoming Death of the Pope,” is
not that it demeans a venerated religious figure. And it’s not that
he shows how human the Pope is. The 
problem
with it isn’t even really that it’s not funny, a crime if
there ever was one within the lines of a humor piece.
No, the problem with the piece is that it is irreverent and tasteless, without the intellectual goods to back it up. Irreverence and bad taste can be effective, but it’s really hard to pull off, and one should always proceed with extreme caution when undertaking the endeavor. Because it didn't quite pull it off and should have known it, the Press might have anticipated the reaction the piece received, since when you boil it down, letting the jokes disintegrate into thin air, what you are left with is, basically, nothing new.
In former editor-in-chief Jeff Koyen’s resignation letter, he essentially disagrees with the above paragraph when he says that “[w]e are iconoclastic, occasionally obnoxious but always intelligent. If you see through the nasty Pope jokes, for instance, you will see a well-reasoned political argument.”
Let’s take a look at part of Taibbai’s piece and see which it is. Joke #49 says, “After beating for the last time, Pope’s heart sits there like a piece of hamburger.” The “well-reasoned political argument” contained within this “joke” is that much as the Pope is holy and abstinent, he’s still a horny guy just like the rest of us. It seems that the reasoned argument here is that the Pope is just another person, with all of the gross habits of any other regular person. Which is fine, but the way in which it is said doesn’t enhance the argument, it only shows disrespect, basically because it can. Not because there is any real reason to. It seems obvious to me that the each of the other 51 jokes contains similar substance.
In short, this little screed is the journalistic equivalent of a bunch of 13-year-old boys realizing for the first time that they can tell dirty jokes, disrespect their teacher, and call people names, and that they think they can get away with all of it.
Click here for the last Culturally Speaking.
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Sarah Stodola is the Executive Editor of Me Three. She can be contacted here.
© 2005 Me Three