the disease of the century

I think it was Clifton Fadiman who once claimed that it was impossible to reconcile a world that gave us Shakespeare with one where The Gong Show was runaway success. While I'm sure Cliffy's bon mot elicited a few wry chuckles from the likes of John Charles Daly and others in their small circle of panel show wit-erati (which was for all intents and purposes an inferior and ossified imitation of the Algonquin Round Table), the highbrow-lowbrow dichotomy being employed conveniently ignores the fact that Shakespeare frequently took the low road in his plays. His works are full of bawdy puns and dirty jokes (e.g. Falstaff's "copper ring," the cross-lingual dildo puns in Henry V, among many others) which, due to the evolution of the English language and changing cultural touchstones, are lost on the casual audiences of today, who've been conditioned to associate thee's and thou's with literary loftiness.

I spent a portion of my childhood watching syndicated repeats of The Gong Show. I spent three years of my college career studying Shakespeare and his works. It's all great as far I'm concerned. Lowbrow, highbrow -- they're just meaningless tags applied for the benefit of the beholder's own insecurities. I imbibe what human culture has to offer for my own sake, not with an eye towards the ages. All I ask from my entertainments is that:

1. They don't bore me.
2. They don't make me feel like I'm wasting my time.

In the end it doesn't matter to the worms that munch on one's decomposing remains if a particular clump of gray matter once held some ruminations on Stephen Dedalus's travails or a fond memory of Moe breaking a hammer on Curly's noggin. Tastes are a subjective affair, though I'd add that broader is better and that one's perspective ought to be focused both inward and outward. Just because shit is the only smell one has encountered does not mean that it's the be all and end all of olfactory experiences.

...or you could just follow the example of this jovial fellow:

What did you do in the Culture War, Grampa Gore Vidal?
The excitable Mister Snootwick (and when you've been saddled with a name like "Marmaduke Snootwick," professional snobbery is the only viable career choice) made his appearance in the pages of Captain Marvel Adventures #137 (October 1952), in a six-page epic tale titled "Captain Marvel and Mr. Tawny's Culture Craze."

Boy reporter Billy Batson and his suit-wearing talking tiger pal, Mr. Tawny, are enjoying a relaxing afternoon in the park, when a magazine quiz causes Mr. Tawny to experience an existential crisis. No, not the typical Cosmo "Are you a good lover?" adequacy issues, but rather a deep seated insecurity over his level of cultural sophistication. You would think a tiger who has mastered speech, reading, and the zippered flies would feel pretty proud of his accomplishments, but not Mr. Tawny who feels that he's not experiencing the finer things in life.

Billy, playing Gallant to Tawny's Goofus, tries to placate the inconsolable cat with stock "be true to yourself" platitudes and a game of checkers, but Tawny won't be sold on that bill of goods...

Tawny is a Eurogames enthusiast, apparently.
When Billy next bumps into Mr. Tawny, he notices a change in his friend's demeanor. Tawny has become more haughty, more arrogant, more...old school Republican.

Scenes from Fawcett City's Class War.
Billy's attempts to discover the source of Tawny's new-found snobbery lead him to the local art museum, where a secret "Culture Club" holds court after closing time. Billy is forcibly rebuffed by the doorman, but Captain Marvel, Billy's superheroic alter ego, is able to strongarm his way into the meeting. Inside he discovers a gaggle of George S. Kaufman clones led by the previously mentioned Mr. Snootwick.

Where are Jon Moss and Boy George?
Disgusted by the snobbery on display, Marvel attempts to break up the meeting, only to be reminded of a little thing called the First Amendment. Fortunately for the plot's momentum, the museum director bumps into Marvel as he's leaving and asks him to evict Snootwick's gang from the premises. It's a task Marvel dives into with a physical gusto that would give the most hardened strike-breaker pause, with a liberal application of superhuman boot to scrawny backsides.

Even though Marvel spares Tawny from his disproportionate wrath, Tawny fails to grasp the elegance of Marvel's physically violent rebuttal to high-handed snobbery. Taking a different approach, Billy suggests that the group meet at Tawny's house. They do, and it doesn't take long for Snootwick to reveal his true colors...

Still less obnoxious than indie comics snobs...
So he wasn't so much a snob as absolutely batshit insane, apparently. With the truth revealed, there's only way this can go down -- with more ass-kicking, this time with Captain Marvel and Tawny unleashing tooth, claw, and the power of Atlas on a bunch of pasty chain-smoking psuedo-bohemians.

I got yer fearful symmetry right here, pal!
I must confess that I don't really get the message of this story, what with the confusing straw man of Snootwick simultaneously representing the contradictory reactionary classicist and antinomian nihilistic attitudes. For all their book burning and nonsense about "degenerate" works, the Nazis had a warped baseline by which to judge what was or wasn't art. No baseline is offered for Snootwick, whose ideology is simply "everything sucks" (which does predate the internet community's peanut galleries by a good few decades, I'll grant you).

Even in broad caricature, the concepts are muddled to a point where there's no identifiable moral, apart from justifying violence against so-called "culture vultures" (which I can get behind in theory). Unless, it's a case of writer Otto Binder or artist C.C. Beck grinding a private axe in public...

Marv, Tawny, what's your take on it?

...and KNOWING is half the BATTLE!
"Grinding axes" it is then. Tune in next time for "Captain Marvel versus Billy Corcoran, That Kid Who Stole My Pants and Shoved Me in the Girl's Lavatory"!

Suburban Lawns - Intellectual Rock (from Suburban Lawns, 1981) - You know how you can tell it's intellectual rock? It's wearing bifocals and reading Schopenhauer.

Like Wall of Voodoo's Dark Continent, the Suburban Lawns' self-titled LP is outstanding album of classic Californian new wave/weirdpunk released on the IRS label and now depressingly out of print.

Reel Big Fish - Everything Sucks (from Turn the Radio Off, 1996) - A catchy bit of third-wave ska, though I am not in complete agreement with the title. My cat Jem doesn't suck. Cheddar cheese-flavored pretzel chunks do not suck. The Sega Master System, flannel sheets, and Yotsuba&! do not suck. I guess "Almost Everything Sucks But a Few Cool Things" wasn't as catchy a song name.