Nephi and Sam vs Laman, Lemuel, and the Man of Suit

For lack of a better introduction, I will get straight to the point. I rented "The Book Of Mormon Movie" the other night. And it was an incredibly entertaining and interesting experience.

Now, while a good deal of progressive minds tend to get pissed off to the point of shouting whenever organized religion is mentioned, I opt for a different approach. I try to look at the humor of any situation - and of course, there is a lot to laugh at when it comes things that people believe. I don't mean that I mock anyone's religion - far from it, I think that everyone should have the right to believe what they like, as bizarre and fairy-talesque it may seem to me. But I *do* think that people shouldn't take themselves so seriously. Hell, while I am quite proud of my personal set of values and philosophies, I actually try and make fun of them whenever I can - a) to ensure I don't get too bigheaded, and b) because it's a lot more fun to joke about something than it is to preach about it. I tend to believe that most religions have *aspects* which are worthwhile, and am actually quite anxious to learn about them so I can find the good bits - however, I see no reason why I should have to do it with a straight face.

So that is *why* I watched "The Book Of Mormon Movie." The question that should be on your mind is "how" did I watch it? The answer is of course, by having a long history with hilariously cheap cinema, which this movie certainly was. And, I must admit, by being somewhat well-versed in the source material, at least for someone not raised in the Mormon church. A few years back, a formerly Mormon friend of mine showed me his collection of animated stories from Mormonism, which were among the more comical things I have ever imagined (most hilarious were the extremely gay stereotypes which the two evil brothers were given). After watching, I figured it was only fair that I gave the real book a shot... you can check it out yourself at http://www.hti.umich.edu/m/mormon/browse.html It's not an easy read, mainly because it's written in mock-old-Bible-style (and because the story is really rather dull), but it's worth reading if you're someone who, like me, is fascinated by what other people believe.

Anyway, the movie covers the first book and about a quarter of the second (this series seems to be broken up in the same way the "Lord Of The Rings" adaptations were), known as the "Books of Nephi." To be frank, the plot in these books is rather uninteresting and mind-numbingly repetetive. Basically it's about Lehi, a crazy prophet (or so everyone *thinks* - sadly, "everyone" in this case includes most readers) who leads his family on an endless trek though the desert because God told him to. Lehi has four sons - two of them, Nephi (the titular hero) and Sam are dashing, daring, courageous, and caring. The others, Laman and Lemuel, alternate between being rationally minded guys who doubt their nutty father, and being creepy bitter sadistic fucks.

SO: what adventures does this motley crew tackle in this fine adventure? Well, after leaving Jerusalem, Lehi sends his sons back TWICE to get things that God forgot about the first time. First to get some bronze tablets from a rich drunken guy (whom our hero is commanded by God to *kill*!), then again to get some wives. Say what you will about the old testament, at least it didn't describe Moses going back to his shephard's hut because he forgot his staff. And the repetition does not end with just the setting - the characters themselves do a hell of a lot of zig-zagging. Laman plots to kill Nephi, oh, about seven times on the course of their journey - and *every* time, he is stopped by a miracle of God, and then repents and learns to love his brother again. You'd think that one of those times he would learn his lesson... If there is one moral in the book, it appears to be "you can't teach an old dog new tricks."

The plot gets rather unbelievable, too. Lehi and his sons built a giant boat and sail across the ocean to South America, guided by a (I swear I am not making this up) *magic golden ball* which functions as a compass to the holy land. Nephi learns the whole story of Jesus 600 years before it happens. As Laman and Lemuel stray further from the path of God, their skin becomes darker and they start performing bizarre pagan rituals - i.e. they resemble the Native American Indians whom we are supposed to believe are their descendents.

Now, I'm not going to pretend that the story of Moses (my favorite bit in the old testament) is any more believable. It's in fact way more over-the-top, with plagues, burning bushes, and of course the *parting of the goddamn red sea*. But while it's a bit silly, it's also far more fun to read, and has some actual *morality* to teach, in the form of God's "top ten commandments" (incidentally, has anyone else noticed that the "abomination" of homosexuality isn't mentioned anywhere on God's "thou shalt not" list?). The only moral I can read in the books of Nephi is "follow your parents, even if they're zonked out on coke, and don't try to kill your brother." Which is a point that is hammered into the ground, repeatedly. I would say that God had lost his touch for character development and structure by the time he started guiding Nephi's hand to write this book - Laman is a villian straight out of a bad "Die Hard" ripoff.

But I must say, more power to the people who believe in this. I am sure my beliefs look every bit as comical to you, so I'm not really fit to pass judgement. Hopefully, though, even the most devout of latter-day saints will be able to understand why many would laugh at the concept of a (snicker) magical golden ball which leads people to America. And hopefully no one will try to deny that "The Book Of Mormon Movie," which features everything from robes made out of bedsheets to cheap digital "angel" effects, does not exactly lend a lot of credibility to the source material.

Time enough at last!

Perhaps you recall the classic "Twilight Zone" episode, in which a bookworm played by Burgess Meredith (of "Batman" and "Rocky" fame) is enthralled to learn he is the sole survivor of the apocolypse, as it gives him "all the time in the world" to be alone with the contents of his neighborhood library. This story is somewhat comparable to how I feel after my trip to the incredibly huge San Diego comic-con last weekend - my stories of nerd sightings will have to wait until the next entry, but the tale of my own nerdishness is one which must be told now. I purchased about 25 or so books, many of them at discount booths - probably enough to keep me occupied through the end of the month. Still, in the meantime I will be in book heaven. If you are interested (and by extension, a nerd), then here is a list of things I purchased.

"No. 5" book two, by Taiyo Matsumoto - Matsumoto has an art style kind of reminiscent of "Yellow Submarine" if it were drawn by an increibly prodigous, pencil-weilding 8-year-old. I loved part 1 as well as his other series "Black And White," and am consistently amused by the letter columns in the manga magazine "Pulp" (which serializes his work), which seem dominated by people who can't stand his style and would prefer something "more like Ranma." Ha ha.

Sin City: "That Yellow Bastard" and "To Hell and Back" by Frank Miller - The film adaptation of this series was incredibly well-done and (thank heaven) quite popular, so it was a nice surprise to find the two books missing from my collection for a low, low price. Sadly, the copy of "That Yellow Bastard" is a misprint, with the entirety of the book being upside down from the cover art. All that means to me is my copy has a bit more personality.

"Jaka's Story" by Dave Sim - My favorite book in the "Cerebus" series, which I lent to someone and fear I will not get back. This copy is in nicer shape anyway. An amazing book, which actually works well as a standalone outside of the series. It has probably the best art of Sim's career, and none of the egotism and sexism that would make him so unreadable later on.

"Orange" by Koji Morimoto - A Japanese art book that looked cool. So I dropped fifty dollars on it. Why? Well, last year I picked up Tatsuyuki Tanaka's "Cannabis Works" on a similar whim, and it turned out to be the best purchase of the year. Morimoto has a similar dark-but-colorful style, and has some truly amazing background designs for buildings and mechanics. I really wonder what else he has worked on - although given my love of avant-anime, I've probably seen at least one of his projects without realizing it.

"Video Noire" by Carlos Trillo and Eduardo Risso - I had never heard of this one before, and the cover art makes it appear quite unexciting, something like "Spy Kids the comic". The inside art is much grittier and darker, and Trillo's "The Big Hoax" was a pleasant surprise buy at last year's convention - so I will give it a shot.

"The Horde" by Baranko - I tend to buy as many books published by the Humanoids company as I can - they specialize in surreal and artistic European comics. This one has long fascinated me, with it's awesome hellish cover art, so I was quite excited to find a cheap copy in good shape.

"Son Of The Gun #2 - Saint" by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Charles Bess - Another Humanoids title, this time from the master of Euro-art-comics (and earlier in his career, Euro-sleaze cult cinema) Alejandro Jodorowsky. I have the first book and it was actually kind of dissapointing - still, cheap Jodo comics are never a bad thing.

"24 Stories" by a bunch of people I don't care about - A novelty gift, for my friend Josh, a huge fan of the TV series "24." This is a breif comic-book spinoff that, from the looks of it, didn't need to be done. There's an especially constipated picture of Kiefer Sutherland on the cover, and not much else worth mentioning.

"Swamp Thing: Regenesis" by Rick Vietch - I think I need to justify this one. See, not long after it was adapted into a justly ridiculed but famous 80's B-movie starring some former playmate and I think a bodybuilder, "Swamp Thing" became one of the most important comics in the entire underground movement. Guided by Alan Moore (who also wrote "The Watchmen" and is probably deserving of more respect than any other single figure in the comics scene), it was gritty and intelligent, and is the sole force responsible for the creation of the "Vertigo" line of comics (which you may know for its somewhat pretentious and annoying "Sandman" goth comics). This is the first book after Moore left and his friend, artist Rick Vietch, took over. While its not nearly as good (Vietch tries way too hard to be Moore in some places, and the results are often confusing), it's certainly not bad, and is at least worth the five bucks I paid for it.

"Hellblazer: Damnation's Flame" by Garth Ennis, Steve Dillon, and some other guys - "Hellblazer" was pretty much a "Swamp Thing" spinoff, the story of John Constantine, an incredibly British freelance mystic, who basically drinks a lot, acts mysterious, and is a bit of a dick sometimes. It was later made into the (presumably) shitty movie "Constantine," starring (of all people) the incredibly American Keanu Reeves. This book is my first sampling of the character as written by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, creators of the excellent "Preacher" series. It starts out as a slightly-too-pretentious hallucination story about the dark history of America (or some such goth shit), but quickly turns into a much more enjoyable series of short stories about British people drinking in bars. I see a lot of familiar themes from "Preacher" in this earlier work, from the whole friendship motif to the almost irritating obsession with Irish culture. A good read, and one which convinced me to check out the series other books ASAP.

"Last Day In Vietnam" by Will Eisner - One of the last books by the legendary Will Eisner, who passed away this year. Eisner is pretty much credited by everyone as being the guy who "gave comics it's brains" - as far back as the 60's, he had started writing comics as "novels" and used real-life topics instead of superheroes or horror stories. Not a lot of people were doing it before him, but there are thank the lord plenty who have followed in his footsteps. Rest in peace.

"Daredevil Visionaries Volume 3" by Frank Miller - The shitty Ben Affleck movie may have tainted the character of the Daredevil for good - but people who snicker at the name should remember that the book was the first creative outlet of "Sin City" author/artist Frank Miller, one of the best in the business. Miller's "Daredevil" isn't as abstract as his later work, which is in some ways better - there's more focus on the structure and style than there is on the "breaking out of comic book cliches," which makes some of his material ("The Dark Knight Strikes Again") so damn unreadable.

"Epicurus The Sage" by William Messner-Loebs and Sam Kieth - A Socrates-era greek story drawn by Kieth (the incredibly talented artist behind "The Maxx" and "Zero Girl") and written by Messner-Loebs (as far as I can tell, the guy who pretty much helped Keith tone down his "Maxx" dialogue and make it semi-coherent). It looks and reads great, but unfortunately this copy is a misprint which is missing about ten pages of story. I'll have to track down a properly-printed one before I can read any more of it.

"Bill And Ted's Most Excellent Adventures" by Evan Dorkin - You know, I initially picked this up for novelty's sake, but once I realized that it was written and drawn by Dorkin (responsible for the hilarious "Milk and Cheese"), my expectations grew. Still have no clue if it's going to be *good* or not, but it will at least offer some stupid fun.

"The Batman/Judge Dredd Files" by Alan Grant, John Wagner, Simon Bisley, Glenn Fabry, and some artists I'm not familiar with - In keeping with the theme of "good comics that were made into shitty movies." Judge Dredd was once the most popular character from Britian's futuristic underground "2000 A.D." magazine, which is notable among other things for launching Alan Moore onto the scene. While the stories weren't exactly smart, the character was intended as a sort of mockery of America's "tough guy" attitude and black-or-white policies - a point which was clearly missed by the humorously bad Stallone film, which was the exact kind of macho stuff Grant and Wagner were intending to parody. This collection of crossovers with "Batman" is beautifully painted by a bunch of fantastic artists (notably Fabry who does the "Preacher" covers). The stories are... well, standard Judge Dredd stuff. The first one is fun, the second one is a little goofy and the third one is kind of annoying. The rad artwork is worth it, though.

"Devlin Waugh: Swimming In Blood" by John Smith and a bunch of artists - A "Judge Dredd" spinoff about a flamboyant-but-tough Vatican agent, who looks like some old-timey airplane hero. The art is nice and the story looks promising. I'm about ten pages into it - so far it takes place in a prison shaped like a seahorse. Which is a pretty cool place for just about anything.

"Flash Gordon Volume 2" by Mac Raboy - An awesome-looking collection of the old comic strips. I'm a big fan of cheesy retro sci-fi, and it's nice to see what newspaper comics were like back when there was some artistic talent involved. Looking back at the strips I read as a kid, only Bill Watterson and Charles Schultz put out anything worth reading. And now, one is retired and the other dead. But that is a topic for another entry. This book looks good, I will leave it at that.

"The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told" by a whole mess of guys - I guess if DC claims they are the greatest, then I'll believe them. I personally have read better Batman stories on the backs of cereal boxes. Part of the problem is that this leans towards the early stories (which, let's be honest, are terrible - the art is bad and the character is not yet interesting), as opposed to the stories from the 1980's which outshine just about every long-running superhero book out there. There are *two* weak stories about airplane dogfights in this one, *zero* of the fun and witty Riddler stories, and a ton of annoying, forgettable crap. The one saving grace is the last story, a neat retro piece from the mid-80's which pays tribute to the early Batman in the best possible way...

"B.R.P.D. - The Soul Of Venice & Other Stories" by a ton of dudes - A "Hellboy" spinoff which I've read a few stories out of. I personally wish Mike Mignola had done all of these stories himself - the other artists involved here tend to mimic his style, and rarely do it justice. But I still have more yet to read, perhaps something will jump out at me as especially great.

"Seraphic Feathers V. 1-4" by Hiroyuki Utatane and Yo Morimoto - I've actually read most of this series as it's serialized in "Super Manga Blast" (which despite the terrible title, is actually a great collection of first-rate manga translations). Still it's nice to have them in collected form so I can read the story all at once. It's a standard sci-fi anime story with a rather convoluted plot, but some first-rate artwork (most notably on the often erotic pin-ups of the story's rather cute female characters) and some not-too-cliched ideas.

"Louder Than Words" by Sergio Aragones - A collection of his wordless strips, like the ones which were featured in the side columns of "MAD Magazine" only much bigger and more well-drawn. Aragones has such a cartoony style - but it's a perfect style, which defenitely pegs him as the best "cartoonist" still in the business. Plus, I've met him at every Comic-con since I was 11, and he's such a down-to-earth guy that it's hard to not fall in love with his work.

"Early Works 3" by Winsor McKay - Quite a find. McKay is most famous for his extravagant full-page "Little Nemo" newspaper cartoons of the 20's, and for being one of the first people ever to sequence drawings onto film (making him a father, if not *the* father, of animation). As you may tell from the title, this collects early projects - from the classic "Little Sammy Sneeze" to the wonderfully surreal "Dream Of The Rarebit Fiend," with dozens of amazingly vivid New York editorial cartoons as a bonus. Really amazing stuff - not just due to it's quality, but for its important and often overlooked place in our culture's history.

Unsung hero: Phil Ochs

This will hopefully be a series, on artists or musicians that I personally have a great amount of love for, yet who never got the right amount of respect. Phil Ochs is a good one to start with, as he got less respect than Rodney Dangerfield. Hell, I hadn't heard of him myself until my friend donated some of his father's old LPs to me. One was called "Pleasures Of The Harbor," and while I can't say that it was "unlike anything I had ever heard before," I can say with certainty that it was "exactly the kind of music I always want to hear."

Most people who *have* heard of Ochs know he was a protest singer in the early sixties, a wanna-be Bob Dylan with a much sweeter voice and far preachier songs. His big hit was a standard anti-Nam song called "I Ain't Marching Anymore," but his early stuff actually branched out a little more than certain other folkies - with novelty tunes like "Draft Dodger Rag" (a list of all the possible excuses he can't go off to war) and lovely epics like "The Highwayman" (which yes, is that old-time poem we all read in junior high, set to melody). But this early period, in which the guy did everything in his power to stop war and make the world a better place, is not the reason why Ochs is a hero. No, his heroic nature revealed itself when he decided to throw all of that away.

By the late 60's, the whole pure folk revival had been replaced by folk-rock, with even Dylan himself adopting electric guitars and a full band. Rather than going along with the trend, or continuing what he had been doing, Ochs opted for the exact opposite approach, completely sabotaging his commercial potential while creating some damn lovely songs. Rather than being dressed up with hip backbeats and blues riffs, the songs on 1966's "Pleasures of the Harbor" were orchestrated to almost ridiculous levels. "I've Had Her" had melodramatic strings and harpsichords, "Outside Of A Small Circle Of Friends" was a jaunty vaudeville track, "The Party" was eight minutes of lounge piano, and "The Crucifixion" had one of the saddest melodies ever written punctuated with the absolute ugliest electronic effects and dissonant strings possible in the late sixties. I say "was" and "had," even though these songs still exist in the present tense, and are still awe-inspiring, although even less people enjoy them now than did in previous eras.

And as if one album of such material wasn't enough, he followed it up with a few more, which I hesitate to call "even better" although I personally listen to them more often. "Tape From California" opened with a weird set of organ clicks which to this day I sometimes mistake for Aphex Twin, while "Rehearsals For Retirement" ditched all of the strings (presumably because the previous albums had been such commercial duds) in order to make what I think of as the best Phil Ochs album. All pretty piano ballads and fun upbeat folksongs, completely out of step with commerciality but the perfect soundtrack for those of us who walk to our own drumbeat.



Inspired by his lack of success, Ochs became a commercial sadist. And perhaps a masichist. Right after "Rehearsals," he hatched a plot to completely fuck with the few fans he had remaining. He released an album entitled "Greatest Hits," which in fact was a collection of Elvis-inspired rockabilly and vegas songs. He performed a concert at Carnegie Hall, where he donned a gold lame suit and sang covers of Merle Haggard and Buddy Holly songs. He re-did some of his classic tracks as ridiculous retro rave-ups. It was an act of amazing Andy-Kaufman-esque self-parody, in which he transformed himself from a cool unknown into the least hip thing possible - all for the sake of fun. And how did the fans like it? Much has been made of the fact that the live "Gunfight At Carnegie Hall" album has audible audience booing, but by the end of the set, those who remain are happily clapping along. Few stuck with him, but if you ask me, I'd rather support an artist who is playing what he enjoys than one who is playing songs he thinks that *I* want to hear.

But Ochs couldn't be a hero his whole life. Six years and no albums after "Greatest Hits," he let me and his other fans down by hanging himself. Even in my darkest moments, I still cannot understand the attraction of death - but I think I can try to piece out what made Ochs feel so low. People may have listened to his music, but they never listened to *him*. As a protest singer, he made some great music, but nobody pulled out of Vietnam until years later, after folk had run its route. As a lush pop artist, nobody bought his albums, despite the fact that those records still sound years ahead of their time. And as a self-mocking rockabilly, no one even tried to "get" the statement he was trying to make about commerciality and its expectations, they simply though he was losing his mind. Which, given his eventual fate, was perhaps the case. But as a gesture of respect, I'm not going to remember the man as a forgotten and unfairly ignored footnote. I prefer to recall him as a great songwriter with an amazing sense of humor - as an inspiration, and a hero, regardless of whether or not anyone else sees him that way.