Old MCN Blogs
David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Tuesday, February 21st, 2006 - Comments Off on 'Aristocrats' Redux: Telling and Retelling at the Knitting Factory
Be Sociable, Share!

'Aristocrats' Redux: Telling and Retelling at the Knitting Factory


Because the magic of last year’s semi-harrowing brushes with the principals of the joke fest The Aristocrats has sort of begun to fade, The Reeler dropped by the Knitting Factory last night for an Aristocrats soundtrack listening party hosted by The Onion. Which actually was supposed to be kind of a blend of all-the-Chivas-Regal-you-can-drink-(until-we-run-out) and open-mic night for anyone drunk or perverse or fearless enough to give his or her own version a try on stage.
Between the Sasquatch, the “gyroscopic shit-baster gymnastics routine,” and a woman who made “mint Milano cookies in her bowels,” the expansive, postmodern, 10-minute epic retelling that started the event was… troubling. What followed was not too much better: A pedestrian, Mad-Libs-style, “insert vulgarity here” routine by some guy who I probably would have heckled had he not been sitting next to me; a drunk Asian whose slouched musings were actually really funny until he invoked his 1,283rd attempt at social consciousness; and a man who had a Jewish agent and a Palestinean suicide bomber solving the crisis in the Middle East through… I do not want to talk about it. Anyway, he won the contest, walking off with a piercing Scotch buzz and $69.69 of The Onion’s money.
But in the evening’s exhibition phase, Shayna Ferm (above) saved the event with her astonishing folk-music version of the Aristocrats joke. I lost track of Ferm’s transgressions after a newborn Chinese baby was christened in shit and Grandma was passed “a big, shiny, golden Star of David to hold up with her cunt.” Alas, because the organizers had invited Ferm to perform, she was ineligible to win any big prizes. God, this town is so fucking corrupt.
I would like to think I can organize some kind of pledge drive to right this particular inequity, but I think we would all be better off just hitting Ferm’s shows from here on out. But if you must, send your protests here and I will file a written grievance–it is definitely a slow enough film day to squeeze that in.

Be Sociable, Share!

Comments Off on 'Aristocrats' Redux: Telling and Retelling at the Knitting Factory

Comments are closed.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon