Phi Slamma Jamma

1. Tara VanDerveer, head coach, Stanford (I almost choked on the S word) women's basketball team won her 800th game last night when her team tattooed USF 100-45. Think about that, for a sec. 800 W's in the victory column spanning a 30 year career. And most of those years spent toiling away in the Pac 10 conference; yes, there are always door mats, but in Division 1 ball, there really are no gimmes. The irony of the 800th win was that it came against a team coached by 2 former players, Jeniffer Azzi and Katy Steding, who were members of VanDerveer's 1st Stanford recruiting class. Lost in the hoopla, but not forgotten, are the two national titles and the numerous final four appearance of Stanford under VanDerveer. Blunt and outspoken, once blasting guard play at a press conference, VanDerveer has coached some of the best....Azzi, Starbird, Wideman, Wiggins, and Appel. But then Vanderveer knows guard play; in the mid 70's she was a starting guard at IU for 3 years. Think, maybe, some of that great school's basketball tradition rubbed off on her there?

2. UCONN. The women's basketball team busted John Wooden's record of 88 straight victories last week. Not impressed by girl play? So what, you say? Well just because men are ballers doesn't mean women can't ball too. Ok, so maybe it's small ball. But, even the late John Wooden recognized it. He said women play the game beneath the net, the way it's supposed to be played. Men play impulsively above the net. Geno Auriemma, the UCONN coach (you either love him or hate him) joking with President Obama who called to congratulate the team, said that the team hadn't lost since he took office. The last team to beat UCONN was Stanford in 2008. On Dec 30th, both teams meet in Palo Alto. Get your popcorn ready. It's going to be a brawl.

3. El Presidente. In a devastating one-two combination, which could be labelled: 'The empire strikes back' President Obama delivered the repeal of the 'Don't ask, Don't Tell,' policy and the signing of the Russian Nuclear Arms Treaty in a phi slamma jamma shattering of the back board just weeks after gagging on the extension of the tax cuts for the upper middle class and the wealthy. Basking in the after-glow, the President and his family are in the islands for the holidays; you can take the girls and boys out of the islands...but you can't take the islands out of them. Shaka bro.

Girl on Girl

Hmmm. 2010. Oprah crying on Baba Walters and denying she's a lesbian (really? not her cuppa?); 'The Kids are All Right,' with Annette and Julianne; Sandra Bullock planting one on Meryl at the Academy Awards; Miley Cyrus for her raunchy(she says it was simulated), uh-huh, whatever with a female dancer in Britain; Aubrey Plaza onstage at the MTV awards saying she wanted to 'do' Megan Fox repeatedly...and Salon inking up the 10 steamiest Lesbian movie scenes. WTF is going on? America bored? Can't get enough?

If we indeed, are all watching out there...here's a short list of uh, my favorites that might make you squirm in your seat...or as a teenie heart throb once said in a Rolling Stone interview, 'real high school soakers.'

1. 'Portrait of a Marriage.' 1992. Who knew Masterpiece Theater and the Brits had it in them to
bring Vita Sackville-West's love for Violet Keppel/Trefusis to the screen in a no holds barred presentation. This is terrific drama and Vita had many girl dalliances, among them Virgina Woolf, but Violet was the love of her life, and Vita and Violet could never get enough. But trouble and bad times surfaced as Vita repeatedly strayed. Conveniently, Harold Nicolson, Vita's husband, liked boys. What a couple! Who needs beards?

2. 'Gia.' 2004. Angelina and Elizabeth Mitchell. Sizzle. Gia Carangi was a Philly girl who was stone cold gorgeous. She set the NY modeling world on fire in the mid 70's and early 80's and loved women. Gia, larger than life, and running on fumes became addicted to heroin. On the cover of Vogue and other magazines around the world, she died at 26, one of the first women to succumb to aids. Jolie won the Golden Globe for her portrayal.

3. 'Bound.' 1996. Gina Gershon and Jen Tilley. Gershon's Corky and Tilley's Violet are edgy, and smart; hot together they put the capitol C back into camp and butch/femme sex where it belonged. Gina Gershon peaked like a gyser in Bound. And Jen Tilley never met a card table she didn't like; she is currently an avid poker player in LA. The Wachowski bros who wrote and directed went on to make The Matrix.

4. 'The Runaways'. 2010. Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning burn up the celluloid not only with their fooling around but with all the 'shit' that surrounded the rocking. It's the 1970's. Uppers. Downers. White lines on table tops. Joan Larkin becomes Joan Jett and Cherie Curie, a Valley girl, becomes the front for the Jett band, the Runaways. In the end, the chickens come home to roost, but what a ride for an all girl under-age jail bait band that crested like a tsunami on their smashing Japan tour.

5. 'The Girl Who Played with Fire.' 2010. Noomi Rapace and Yasmine Garbi get it on after a tease in the 'Dragon' installment. Surprisingly, Rapace said that the Swedes reacted negatively to the girl on girl scene. Uh, this, from the country that gave us the great enigmatic, provocative Garbo.

'I read the news today oh, boy...'

30 years? Really? I was sitting in my studio apt, a lovely Berkeley dwelling situated on top of a garage at the end of a long driveway, watching MNF and mulling over the pros and cons of dumping my current philandering girlfriend. Should I or shouldn't I? The dog stood by the door and wanted out. The f'ball game was almost over. The Jets were probably going to kick a field goal to send it into OT. And then...Howard Cosell's voice, that unmistakable quivering nasal sing-song cadence, broke the news of John Lennon's death at the Dakota. I stared in disbelief at the telly, and started to cry. It was a different sort of emotional over-flow; not as shockingly raw as the Kennedy assassination, in retro, it was more of an undefined sadness that swept through me. The music didn't die that day, but another light went out and once again my generation was left to ponder questions that begged sensibility and wholeness from a shattering enigmatic event. The girl friend came over. In my numbness, I relented and didn't kick her out. A mistake. Which took years to rectify.

postscript: Because MNF was the only 'live' event on the telly that night, ABC was asked to interrupt the f'ball game to break the news. In a recording which was aired this morning, Cosell, not sure of the protocol, and a bit daunted by the request, asks Frank Gifford for his opinion. Gifford, much to his credit, immediately recognizes the gravity of the situation, and tells Cosell to do it. Soon after, 24 hour news networks like CNN, MSNBC and FOX cometh forth.

A Tale of Two...

Slouched over and glutted or maybe it was gutted in a post T'day daze, I barred all visitors and watched 2 sensational films this past week.

1. The first was a documentary by Martin Scorsese, 'Public Speaking' chronicling the life and times of the irascible, intellectual, cult figure Fran Lebowitz. Produced by HBO, Scorsese lets the camera roll as Lebowitz holds court at her booth in the Waverly Inn; no topic is off limits. An hour into the film you realize that this is a labor of love by both Scorsese and Lebowitz not so much about Lebowitz but about NYC; how the metropolis has morphed from one decade to the next, (ascension, decline, resurrection,) and what better conduit then one of the era's legendary, astute wits. I remember reading 'Metropolitan Life' in the 70's and thinking wow, I'd just stumbled onto Oscar Wilde's (Lebowitz would prefer I say, Dorothy Parker) doppelganger. I also watched (because we like to watch) Lebowitz carving out and nurturing, through the decades, a very precise physical persona. Cigarette, even to this day. Dark glasses. White long sleeve shirts. Lebowitz never met a pair of blue jeans she didn't love. Hmmm. Was she or wasn't she, a member of the club? Surely smart enough to be one, in the documentary she slides around the answer. Curmudgeon. Unique. A contemporary intellect with chops, this insightful documentary blew me off the couch for a double viewing.

2. Let me now sing the praises of Olivier Assayas. French. Once married to the beautiful Maggie Cheung, and director of the black and white cult film, 'Irma Vep' which is so amazingly good that really what else could follow...but a film with Cheung again in 'Clean' (she won an award) and the very slow, very French, very beautiful 'Summer Hours,' which he wrote last year. Assayas whose work always has an edge to it, whether it's defined by character or music, has catapaulted himself to the upper echelon of the screen pantheon with his latest movie, 'Carlos.' The film is over 5 hours long and a masterpiece. Assayas once said that movies depicted passage of time; 'Carlos' covers 20 years of Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, aka Carlos the Jackal, who roamed from Budapest, Germany, Syria, and France engaged in revolutionary terrorism. Do we care about this character? Yes and no in a peculiar voyeuristic way. The depiction from the mid 70's to the 90's when Carlos is finally captured is compelling stuff. Countries plot against each brazenly. The Syrians hate the Saudis. The German Statsi turns a blind eye. Sudan betrays. The CIA is a neutered specter. Women in this film are portrayed as 1. uncontrollable stone cold trigger happy revolutionists with more cajones than Carlos; or 2. significantly oppressed, marginalized, and manipulated. Fueled by alternative post punk music, a trademark of Assayas (music) the film whizzes through the 5 hours and closes with Los Lobos', 'La Pistola y el corazon' (a personal fave) while the credits roll. As surprising as that choice of music was, nothing could prepare me for Assayas' closing song, 'Little Cloud' by the Incredible String Band at the end of last year's 'Summer Hours.' Are you kidding me? What a man!