Day 963 – Barbie, Fani vs Jimmy, Jeff Koons, Coco

Friday, September 8, 2023

I listened to an interview with Mark Ronson who did the musical score for Barbie. What an interesting guy. He’s produced some big hits, including Bruno Mars “Uptown Funk” and Amy Winehouse “Back to Black.” However, the Barbie musical score was a departure for him. He and the director asked various artists to contribute. Among them was Billie Eilish, who with her brother composed and sang a song that they sent to Mark and director Greta Gerwig. Mark immediately called Greta and said, “Damn, how can they be this good and so young?” I don’t remember the song from the movie but it is perfect. so perfect in fact that Ronson wove it, he says, throughout the movie.

Ronson also spoke about his first album he produced. It was a rap song that sampled two other people’s work. When he asked if they were okay with it, one said they wanted 100% of the royalties and the other 25%. He had to go back to the artists and tell them they were at -25% in royalties.

This is not unlike Jeff Koons whom I saw an interview with on 60 Minutes. His famed blue balloon dog sculpture cost him more in materials than he sold it for ($1.6m?). I’ve always found Koons’ work – well, problematic. However, this interview changed my opinion. Jeff employs workers around the world to create his art. He often doesn’t touch the final product. He’s the vision guy. In his interview with Anderson Cooper he asked Anderson – how many interviews would you be able to do if you had to do the lights, the cameras, the audio, all of it? Anderson said if he had to do the lights the number would be zero. 

However, I got Jeff’s point. It’s a principle that an old kiteflying friend told me once, Do the parts you like and are good at and find others to do the rest. I also realized that having an artistic workshop (an atelier) is an old artistic tradition. Many of the Renaissance artists had workshops and folks to do the detail work. Rodin certainly did and Kehinde Wiley does now. Does it matter if he didn’t paint every flower in the background of one of his paintings? 

It’s an interesting question. Especially, when you come to writing. Is James Patterson really writing every word in his books? Does it matter? In the case of well known authors who pump out lots of books and do so “in association with” I find that those books aren’t as good as the first original books when the author was struggling to get one out the door. Then there are people like Nora Roberts who seem to write and write and write then stop and say it’s a book. I can’t figure her out. Was there a story line? I guess. Kind of. WTF?

What are we going to say when AI starts writing books? Will they be any good? I doubt it. But, I’m sure it’s coming, or is it here?

We watched Coco win her semi-final. She’s on the road to becoming America’s sweetheart. She’s 19. She’s cute, and she plays a good game of tennis. I prefer to watch women’s tennis because it can be over sooner. Men’s tennis goes on too long. It seems the way most tennis matches are won is by errors committed, or not committed. bong … bong … boring.

And now we get to Fani’s letter to Jim Jordan. Jim Jordan is a bully. He uses his position to beat up on people and like William Buckley he accused people of doing the very thing he is doing, and they are not. He will brow beat someone endlessly and try to force them to admit something that is basically not true. If the person gives in and answers “Yes” to some twisted logic question he then turns around and hits them over the head with it endlessly. 

Bear in mind that Jordan has never done the job to which he was elected. That is to be a legislator. That means working on and passing legislation. Something he has never done. So why is he in Congress? Power. He likes the power of the office and to be able to push his nutty ideas.

His committee to investigate the weaponization of politics and the investigative services is an example of this. He sent a letter to Alvin Bragg about his investigation into Donald Trump. He got a to the point reply and explanation. Not that Jordan cared or read it. He tried it with Fani. Oh boy, did he get a reply!

It’s a seven page letter that starts off kindly enough – you don’t understand the law or the constitutions of the United States or Georgia. Nor do you understand RICO both federal and Georgia. She suggests he can buy a book that explains all this to him. Price $249.00. She then tells him that if he wants to do something that is within his purview and could actually be helpful he could look into the attacks made against her and her office and jurors. She give him ten examples.

Fani don’t play. You want to? Come on.

Now you might ask, “Why is a county DA having to do this?” or “Why is a black woman having to explain this to a white man?”

The answer is “because the white men shirked their responsibilities to do it.”

They had multiple opportunities. They have them now. Every time they turned a blind eye, prevaricated, pretended not to notice or straight up lied.

And as to Jordan’s snide comment about “why bring it now?” She said that if certain people had complied with her requests instead of fighting them all the way to the Supreme Court like Lindsey Graham did, she could have brought the case earlier.

Moving on.

I was made aware of a fact I had failed to notice before last night. Every Trump defendant and every Trump case has lost in court. (Okay of the 62 cases about election fraud 60 straight up lost and 2 wrangled off with technicalities – but certainly not wins on the merits.)

The latest in the list of losers is Peter Navarro who like Steve Bannon had railed against a Congressional subpoena and ended up being found guilty of ignoring it and not showing up. How unfair! The Constitution! We’ll appeal! Question – did you show up? Answer – No. Result – Guilty.

Or as Fani explained to Jim Jordan – You need to face reality. If you commit crime in Fulton County you will be charged with the crime and tried in Fulton County and no, your buddies don’t get special treatment.

I think I’ll contact Mr. Jordan’s office and see if he’s gotten hold of the Rico book and – here’s a big one – has  he started reading it? Oh sorry, are we on to Hunter?

Then there is the bullying and destroying of norms that the Republicans say they hold so dear. If they hold them so dear, why are they trampling on them? (Answers in a second.) There’s Tennessee where after expelling two black legislators for speaking up when told they couldn’t talk they got re-elected and once again the Republican Speaker of the House in Tennessee is f*cking with them and telling them he will not afford them the basic privileges he let’s his Republican white legislators have.

In Wisconsin a woman was elected to that state’s Supreme Court by eleven thousand of votes. It wasn’t close. She’s a Democrat and this would break the conservative stranglehold the conservatives have had on the court. Giving sanity a 4-3 advantage. The Republican legislature has come up with a novel way to prevent this. Impeach her! And while impeached, she can’t rule until she goes to trial and her trial is over. So they are never going to hold the trial! So clever. The court will stay deadlocked at 3-3. Therefore Wisconsin can stay gerrymandered and the Republican legislature can keep it’s super majority.

This is where we are at in this country.

And if Ron DeSantis is so proud, as he claims, of the anti-abortion measure he signed why did he do it in the middle of the night behind locked doors and kept others out? Just asking.