Bruce comes out of Against Me!'s dressing room and I say hello. He's totally
cool, and asks if I can wait a minute. Says he'll be right back. I say,
"Absolutely." He comes right back. Smiles when he come around the corner. I
thank him for living (basically), and he signs my ticket from last night.
And personalizes it. He goes on his way, and we head out to stand next to
the stage and watch Foo.

Next thing we know, Bruce is standing next to us. So, we watch half the show
with Bruce, who's bopping along to the show. He bolts. The rest of the show
rocks. Dave Grohl is a GREAT front man. Amazing that he was Nirvana's
drummer. The show ends. Out of nowhere, there's Bruce walking by. He stops.
"Any requests for tomorrow night?" he says?

"What's that?" I say.

"Any requests for tomorrow night?"

"Yeah. Um. Shit. Why am I blanking? Off of the third disc on Essential ...
None But The Brave!"

"Oooh. Tough one," Bruce says.

And he heads out. He seemed intrigued. I'm curious as to whether or not
he'll play it.

Then we go backstage and do shots of Jaeger with Dave Grohl and the rest of
the band.

Good night. It was a very good night.

[the next day...]

Bruce played the song. Not only did he play the song, but he explained why
he was playing the song. I get this quote as accurate as I can:

"I met this young guy last night who was in the pit for the last two shows,
and I made the mistake of asking if he had a request. He gave me an obscure
outtake from Born In The USA."

Applause.

"An outtake. It wasn't on the record. We've never played this. Most of you
aren't even going to know it. If you know this, you're hardcore, but we're
going to try it. I don't see that guy out there, but I'm sure he's here."

And they played None But The Brave ... And they played it Well.
--Ryan White, Oregonian sports writer...

A campaign which kicks off with a "promotional stunt" -- in this case, it would be me faking or simulating my own disappearance, abduction, or possible death. Such a stunt would be concocted so as to evoke thematic and stylistic affinities with the Odyssey of Homer, with Joyce's sandwich-chomping, soap-purchasing perambulator of Dublin proper, with Samuel Beckett's unforgettable "Murphy", with the eponymous hero of "Bunny My Honey" by Anita Jeram, and with the Amelia Earhart, Judge Crater, and Billy Eckstine affairs. Such a stunt would be roughed out to begin with and then adjusted on the fly to make opportunistic use of current events, real and imagined -- bogus sightings, false hopes, denunciation by skeptics, etc. I would have to be willing to stay missing, abducted or dead for as long as it took to obtain the desired attention and sympathy. This last bit is the biggest flaw in this proposal, by the way, as it is exceedingly likely that no one or almost no one will give a tinker's damn if I go missing (me included). Should this be the case, I would have to be prepared to re-emerge in some new persona, some new identity, some new guise -- or else move back to Polynesia and/or go fuck myself...

1. Bugs Bunny "Rabbit Rampage" (Warner Bros, June 11, 1955)
One of Chuck Jones's many classic cartoons with that rascally wabbit,this is also the baby of one of his long-time partners, MichaelMaltese. Here, Maltese's background as a story board artist comesinto play as most of the action in this seven-minute cartoon involveBugs battling with an unseen artist's paintbrush. The rabbitfrequently dashed off witty asides to the audience, letting them inon the joke with a sly nod and a wink but never before had Jones'cartoons made us feel that this was something above and beyond theusual pratfalls. Reality's constantly yanked from Bugs as he loseshis trademark rabbit hole, gets disfigured, gets disgraced and getsturned into a grasshopper and a horse. Bugs takes the only way outhe can, grabbing a sign saying THE END. The camera pulls back and wesee the punch line: Elmer Fudd's finally gotten his revenge on his ol' nemesis.

2. The Monkees "Dance Monkees Dance" (NBC, December 12, 1966)
From their first season, America's TV version of the Beatles (withan English singer though) has the boys tangled up with a crookeddance studio that tries to bilk them- this episode also featuredtheir hit "I'm A Believer" (a Neil Diamond song). While they scratchtheir heads, figuring how to weasel out of the con, Mickey Dolenzdecides they need a "brilliant idea." To get it, he walks off of theset to find the show's writers. The camera follows him as he walksthrough the studio, brashly trashing TV's fourth wall. He comes intoa small room full of old, long-haired Mandarin men to plead hiscase. They type up an answer on white paper but when he gets handedit, it's turned to yellow. Dolenz reads their answer as he returnsto the set and decides it's garbage and tosses it away. The realwriter was James Frawley, who would go on to direct episodes of Ally McBeal.

3. Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments, "Turn it Up," from Bait andSwitch (Onion/American, 1995)
Recorded for master producer Rick Rubin's label (which also put outJohnny Cash's last albums), this Ohio band was head by former GreatPlains singer Ron House, a boozy literary-minded smart-ass- youwouldn't always know it though with him howling (not singing) infront of rambling, noisy indie-rock bands. He once told me that hewas "trying to find cerebral ideas about inebriation." The narratorof this song might just be the song itself, literally- "he" was bornat the start of the tune after all. He keeps yelling the song's(his?) title at the listener again and again, as if to say "I'malive!" (for now at least). Whoever's voice it is, they keeppromising to reveal their killer but the end comes before thathappens. House claims that he failed ultimately, having run out ofspace but I like to think that he (the narrator) is gone at the endbecause the song ends so he's dead, over and out. Country great TomT. Hall, who was so obsessed about songcraft that he once called analbum (and a tune) "In Search of A Song," would appreciate the idea (hopefully).

4. Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of An Author (1921)
Now a staple of 20th century theatre, like many pieces ahead of theirtime, this play got a mixed reaction when it premiered in Italy withthe author supposed running out of the reception to avoid apummeling. What gleefully did was not just poke fun atthe medium's conventions but to also tear them into pieces with onlyone of its characters sporting an actual name. The rest were justlabelled "Father," "Mother," "Boy," etc. as each of them pleaded tobe made into a memorable part of the action. And yes, Pirandello hada cosy relationship with Mussolini but if we've generally forgiventhe anti-Semitic Wagner, isn't LP worthy of rehabilitationalso? Pomo that's decades ahead of its time.

5. John Jesurun "Deep Sleep" (presented at La Mama, February 1986)
As part of his media triology, Jesurun's seventy-minute Obie-winningplay had the audience surrounded by two large screens on either sideof them and actors perched in between. All kinds of bizarreinteractions would take place with one boy seemingly trapped withinthe video screen and at other times, video characters arguing withthe live actors and ordering them around. Eventually, the stageactors are sucked into the video itself (shades of David Cronenberg's). A few years later, when the Internet started topermeate the lives of millions of people, sucking them into acyberworld, Jesurun's bizarre world seemed eerily prophetic. See theNew York Times review here.

6. Bob Dylan "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" from Bringing It All BackHome (Columbia, March 22, 1965)
The first side of this classic album (one of his finest achievements)ends with a goofy story of madcap, slapstick antics. Maybe it'sfitting that the song begins with a false start that's actuallyincluded on the record. Dylan jumps in, barely spitting out thefirst two lines before he breaks down into laughter as the bandmisses their cue. Someone else cracks up (producer Tom Wilson?),telling Dylan to start again, then cracks up some more and thenorders "OK... take two," all of which takes up about the first 30seconds of the song. Next Dylan tries it again, this time with theband blasting alongside him now for a final take. Most any artistwould have otherwise cut out this bit but Dylan and Wilson decidedthe behind-the-scenes gaff belonged there. Wonder what the Columbiaheads thought when they heard this...

7. Vladimir Nabokov, Palefire (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1962)
Literary criticsm as literature, where a 999-line is poem istransformed and disfigured by its interpreter's insane fantasies intoa 300-plus page sci-fi world. A comment on commentary? A poke atliterary estate executors (i.e. the evil, tight-fisted Stephen Joyce)?

8. Alan Resnais, Last Year At Marienbad (Argos Films, June 25, 1961)
Like Pirandello's play, the characters here have no real names, onlyletters of the alphabet. Most of the "action" of the film is a mannamed "X" trying to convince a woman named "A" that they know eachother, even though she insists that they don't. So who do webelieve? Is either of them a reliable source? Does it matter,especially when the scenes are so beautifully filmed at such anelegant estate? Does it also not matter because the figures arevacuous? A piece of art that presents all questions and no answersand can madden you until you realize that. Also, if a supremejackass like Michael Medved hates it so much, isn't that anotherreason to admire the film?

9. Frank Lloyd Wright, Guggenheim Museum, New York City (1959)
A decade and a half's work (which the great architect wouldn't liveto see completed) on the ultimate art object -- a museum itself. Afterall the bickering with the museum overseers and the city, thisrotunda became one of the most recognizable and unique buildings notjust in Gotham itself but also the entire art world, though it waslater shown up by its Spanish namesake. Credit is also due to artistNam June Paik who transformed the long, continual spiral ramp andhuge hollow center into yet another massive work of art for his2000exhibition.

10. A Tribe Called Quest "Scenario" (directed by Jim Swaffield,January 1992) and De La Soul "Ego Trippin' (Pt. 2)" (directed by Frank Sacremento, 1993)
Two of the funniest, canniest rap videos, both intent on turning thewhole genre on its head. In the Quest video (incorrectly credited toSpike Lee many times), cartoon GUI video controls are shown as ifSwaffield is surreally mixing the images on the spot- backgroundschange with a click as do clothing and hairdos. Sacremento's videofor DLS (who have a cameo in the Tribe video) is a pie in the face toall the gangsta rap cliches about consumer culture gone wild- showingoff curvy women, gold chains, flashy cars, etc.. Here, when we see afly ride, the caption is "it's a rental." When one of the singersgets a hot girl in bed, "in your dreams buddy" flashes on thescreen. At the end, a close up of another singer reveals that he's a"stock boy at K-mart." Brilliant. Bertolt Brecht would have been proud.

We think this is good news, or at the least great casting.

DEFINITION: A story (narrative, picture, film, other) which comments upon itself and/or its "frame" or "medium" as it goes along, the highest of the form reflects on the nature of art and its synthetics. In the best pomo, the arrows pointing outside the frame define the frame itself; this is content that overtakes form, hyper self-consciousness where SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS is the subject.

Aspects of pomo show up in lots of Modern, Abstract, Romantic, even Classical and Renaissance works, but a post-modern piece takes the relation between FORM and Content as a major overriding theme. Highly deliberate in tone (with disdain for the didactic), its richest form is comedy, although it can suggest tragic possibilities (Fellini's GINGER AND FRED). Ovid's "Pyramus and Thisbe" play-within-a-play sequence from HAMLET is a "post-modern" gesture, the play itself is not. "What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her?" animates much of what's best in pomo.

When in doubt, glance back at a cherished post-modernist light bulb joke:

Q: How many post-modernists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Punch line!

A highly personal list:

1. 8 1/2 (1963) Frederico Fellini
A famous movie director gets stuck inside his latest script, "existential" metaphor for human "condition." Runners up: DAY FOR NIGHT (1973) from Francois Truffaut, ADAPTATION (2002) script by Charlie Kaufman from a non-fiction book by Susan Orleans

2. SGT PEPPER (1967) That whole world within a world, a "live" concert opens up a "studio" album experience, closes with a "song-within-a-song" that steps back out of its colorful fantasy world into... the "real" black-and-white newsprint world of "A Day in the Life"? See also: A Hard Day's Night (1964), teen flick about teen flick genre.

3. BLEAK HOUSE (1853) Charles Dickens
An overflowing Victorian novel about Victorian novels which interweaves the heroine's first-person narrative with the omniscent Dickens, allowing for multiple points of view, arguing among other things new, non-linear narrative ideas. (One of its secret themes is the relationship between the author and his heroine.) BONUS IRONY: Dickens, the renowned satirist of his era's hypocrisies got canonized as a crusty old Victorian.

4. SHERLOCK JR (1924) directed by Buster Keaton
Stepping "onstage" into the movie's "frame," then back out again at the end to learn how to kiss through the projectionists's peephole. This idea extended in Woody Allen's PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (1985).

5. LARRY SANDERS SHOW (1992-1998) HBO, starring Garry Shandling
A late-night cable show about a late-night network talk show that jumps back and forth between on-camera and off, commenting on the absurdity of fame while indulging its trashiest aspects.

6. "Quotation Marks" (1953) by Klaus Probst
The great "lost" essay by the obscure but derided Belgian pre-beat intellectual, a formalist's fever dream.

(Matthew Diffee)

7. KISS KISS BANG BANG (2005) written and directed by Shane Black
Ramond Chandler's world as a house of cards...

8. THE LATE SHOW (1977) written by Robert Benton
Art Carney in the role of his life as an aging dick opposite Lily Tomlin as a ditsy Hollywood dame who never wears skirts. See also Benton's ICE HARVEST.

9. KING KONG (2005) Peter Jackson, director
"It's not an adventure story..."

10. "Le Faux Miroir" (1928) Rene Magritte (above)
You're tempted simply to put the man's name in quotes, so much of his work is concerned with tweaking the interplay between artist and viewer, painting and subject, form and content. And even Magritte worked inside Marcel Duchamp's invention of fire with a toilet bowl.

Discuss. (Are moves more inclined toward pomo than other mediums? Can you think of any "tragic" pomo pieces? Are there pieces "posing" as pomo that don't deserve the title? Have you started second-guessing yourself yet?)

Any links between this, this and this?