Monday, October 29, 2007

Tom Cruise, Ron Paul, and Sex Pistols -- on Leno 10/30

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Tomorrow, when the three guests listed above are supposed to be on the Tonight show (in that order, if all goes as scheduled), is a big night for Scientology, libertarianism, and punk rock — and somewhere out there, someone who’s into all three is even more excited than I am.

Despite the very minor alliance between the Scientologists and libertarian psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Szasz in combating the practice of involuntary psychiatric treatment decades ago, though, I like only the second and third items in that list (and I wrote about my differences with Szasz five brief years ago) — but two is enough for tomorrow. I’m not demanding. Maybe some Pistols fans will watch and find in freedom-loving Paul a quite literal version of the conservatism for punks I think the culture needs — patriotic, free-market, and individualistic, but with a directness and immediacy more likely to motivate people and retain their emotional loyalty than long, abstract treatises.

Fittingly, I heard about the impending Paul/Pistols broadcast this past weekend while in DC for gatherings of people affiliated with the Phillips Foundation (among them Ron Paul-admiring Robert Novak and an editor from Ron-Paul-fan-banning conservative blog RedState) and people affiliated with Reason, now headquartered in a hip DC brownstone and running Reason.TV (Kurt Loder and Drew Carey were there, the latter accompanied by a bevy of Price Is Right models).

But I saw an even bigger celebrity in DC (thanks to an unexpected post-Reason party hosted by Reason veteran Julian Sanchez and relatively new Reason writer David Weigel), indeed the biggest celebrity of all: I refer to mighty GALACTUS! Yes, some industrious Halloweener constructed a costume based on the three-hundred-foot-tall, purple-armored eater of planets from Fantastic Four comic books, complete with giant, two-foot-thick boots and towering helmet-vanes that just barely enabled him to fit inside the high-ceilinged old house in question. Galactus was even taller than blogger Megan McArdle.

Also at the party were Fantastic Four villain Doctor Doom, with Van de Graaff-machine-generated electrical bolts leaping from his gauntleted hands, and Spider-Man villainess the Black Cat (accompanying a Doctor Who-garbed Sanchez, complete with sonic screwdriver), all to heavily 80s-leaning music (as for me, I see I have just received an unanticipated V for Vendetta mask in the mail from fellow anarcho-capitalist and V for Vendetta fan Bretigne Shaffer Calvert, granting me subversive powers that no mere Marvel could control).

But above all: Galactus. Indeed, He Who Hungers made my brief stop at the party more satisfying than seeing that sham of a (nigh-Galactusless) Fantastic Four sequel movie ever could have.

To get back to punk for a moment, though: anyone who thinks the urge to rock is not (for good or ill) something instinctual and primal should check out this (ostensibly untrained) dancing parrot pointed out to me by girlfriend Koli. This sort of energy can be harnessed for good or for awesome, but it cannot be destroyed or ignored, not while mohawked life endures, be it hairy or feathered. And you can take that to the bank, with or without fractional reserves.

3 comments:

Travis said...

I happened to flip to this episode the night it aired and couldn’t believe it. I love the sex pistols, have a giant Ron Paul sign in my living room, had been reading Dianetics at the time (no joke) and have always been a Tom Cruise apologist (and I’m not a scientologist). So, I was pretty psyched about seeing this. Johnny Rotten acted like a fool. Naturally, he doesn’t realize that RP is, essentially, the guy who has the best shot of bringing anything like Anarchy in the US, but, whatev.

Paul said...

Although Szasz has worked with Scientology in the past, I think it’s inaccurate to describe him as a ‘Scientologist’.

Todd Seavey said...

And no one did.