Month: February 2005

“Was it all just a dream?” Michael Moore asks at the beginning of Fahrenheit 9/11, his custard-pie-in-the-face salute to the Bush Administration for using weapons of mass destruction as weapons of mass distraction. Moore was referring to the previous four years, from hanging chads to Swift boats, but he might as well have been referring to the first half of 2004, from The Passion of the Christ to Fahrenheit 9/11. After a century of purring like a kitty-cat, the American movie industry suddenly coughed up a pair of hairballs, and the result was mass hysteria—well, mass-media hysteria.

   Mel Gibson’s splatter film, which purports to tell the Gospel truth about Jesus’ trial and execution, either did or didn’t inspire the Pope to say “It is as it was.” Meanwhile, Moore’s campaign attack ad got a big fat thumb’s up from Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based insurgent group. And it’s tempting to pit the two movies against each other in some kind of international red-state/blue-state showdown—earnest religiosity versus sarcastic secularism, faith versus doubt. But what’s more interesting than who endorsed which one is the fact that people felt compelled to take sides. Not since Birth of a Nation has the country been so divided over cellulose fibers.

   That may explain why neither movie will play a prominent role in this year’s Oscar telecast (Sunday, February 27, 7pm on ABC). By definition, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences strives for consensus, smoothing over the rough spots, tossing out the hairballs. Gibson, who conquered the Academy with the strikingly similar Braveheart, has had to settle for a mere three nominations this time—cinematography (all that red blood), makeup (all that red blood) and original score (all those borrowings from The Last Temptation of Christ). And Moore, who staked everything on a Best Picture nod, isn’t even nominated for Best Feature Documentary.

   Did Academy members deliberately ignore these hot potatoes? Only their hairdressers know for sure. But there’s no denying that each movie offered something that Academy members tend to overlook: a distinctly personal vision. Despite Gibson’s desire to tell it like it was, The Passion of the Christ is very much The Gospel According to Mel, a right-wing ideologue’s Bible lesson, soaked in the blood of the lamb. And despite Moore’s carefully cultivated image as a working-class mascot, Fahrenheit 9/11 is very much The World According to Michael, a left-wing ideologue’s history lesson, the facts and opinions soaked in gasoline, then lighted, like a Molotov cocktail.

   Both movies benefited from the controversy that ignited around them, and neither director was above fanning the flames, but it takes more than controversy to fill a movie theater. You also have to be able to sense something in the air. Approaching it from different directions, Gibson and Moore both tapped into the zeitgeist, this feeling that the country, bitterly divided, is up for grabs. That’s why Moore could reasonably expect to swing an election, and it’s why Gibson, without having left ancient Judea, can be given at least some credit for having done so. It’s not the economy, stupid. It’s Deuteronomy. Like it or not, movies now have political clout.

   But we’re here to celebrate artistic achievement, not political clout, even if it’s harder and harder to tell the one from the other. Was Hotel Rwanda’s Don Cheadle nominated for Best Actor because of his stellar performance (I found it a little thin) or because the Academy wants to acknowledge a neglected genocide? Was Vera Drake’s Imelda Staunton nominated for Best Actress because of her stellar performance (I found it a little thin) or because the Academy is worried about Roe v. Wade? Politics aside, I’m sorry to report that, once again, the Academy has voted for movies that don’t even belong on the ballot. What follows is my attempt to redraw the electoral map.

I believe I can fly

They’re saying it’s Martin Scorsese’s year. At least they were saying that. Now they’re saying it’s Clint Eastwood’s year. Personally, I think 1976 (Taxi Driver) was Scorsese’s year. I also think 1978 (New York, New York), 1980 (Raging Bull), 1983 (The King of Comedy), 1988 (The Last Temptation of Christ) and 1990 (Goodfellas) were Scorsese’s years. But The Aviator, for all its cinematic razzle-dazzle—and there’s no movie of the last 12 months that I enjoyed watching more—doesn’t add up to all that much. Leonardo DiCaprio puts on quite a show as Howard Hughes, the business tycoon whose obsession with flying turned into an obsessive-compulsive nightmare. And Cate Blanchett is a veritable hoot as a Katharine Hepburn who perhaps existed only in her movies. But Scorsese and scriptwriter John Logan don’t offer us a very complicated portrait of Hughes, the living embodiment of American business in its skyscraping heyday. OCD isn’t a tragic flaw, it’s a personality disorder.

It’s about time

Made for a tiny fraction of the cost, Shane Carruth’s Primer gets more out of a two-car garage than The Aviator gets out of an entire continent. And it’s an enjoyable piece of do-it-yourself sci-fi to boot. First-time writer/director/editor/star Carruth drew on his experience as a software engineer in putting together this paranoid thriller about R & D gone bad. And the time-travel premise, which has a pair of inventors meeting themselves coming and going, leads to some great wisecracks—e.g., “I haven’t eaten since later this afternoon.” Still, it’s the atmosphere, Carruth’s feeling for low-rent scientific endeavor, that makes Primer such a provocative look at the way we do business today. Scorsese had more than $100 million to play with. Carruth had to make do with whatever was lying around. The result is a triumph of good ol’ American know-how.

They shoot horses, don’t they?

There’s so much to like about Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby that you find yourself not wanting to pick at its flaws. There’s the movie’s pace, for one thing—almost funereal, but with just enough spring in its step to go 15 rounds. And there’s the championship bout of comic understatement between Eastwood and Morgan Freeman, who appear to have studied each other’s moves for years. Finally, there’s Hilary Swank, who proves all over again that, given a role she can sink her teeth into, she’s going to clamp down like a rabid dog. Speaking of which, it isn’t hard to understand why disabled-rights organizations have protested a paralyzed boxer’s request to be put down, but you have to respect Eastwood for following the story wherever it led him. To my mind, there’s more religious feeling in Frankie’s decision to take Maggie’s life in his own hands than in all the torture scenes included in The Passion of the Christ. Let’s hear it for unhappy endings.

A soupçon of asparagus

And let’s hear it for unhappy beginnings. When Sideways opens, Paul Giamatti’s Miles is a bit of a slob and a bit of a snob. Still reeling from a divorce, he’s taken refuge in the rarefied realm of wine connoisseurship, and it’s hard to believe no movie’s explored this ripe territory before. Coming off About Schmidt, which I found drab and condescending, director Alexander Payne has deepened his emotional palette, added complexity. As Miles, Giamatti is remarkably unremarkable, which must have confused the Academy, cheating him out of a nomination. Thomas Haden Church, who is nominated, gets off some great lines. And Virginia Madsen does a lovely job of convincing us that there are women out there who might go for a guy like Miles. Movie of the year? Perhaps not, but Payne has made great strides in the comedy of disappointment. Rarely has failure been limned so successfully.

But seriously, folks

It was kind of a depressing year for comedy, and I mean that in a good way. For not only did Sideways drag Miles through the gutter before allowing him to step onto the curb, several other movies cultivated a bummer vibe while ostensibly going for laughs. Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou was so successful at this that it wound up dividing us critics down the middle. (I loved it.) So, in its willfully idiosyncratic way, did I Heart Huckabees. (I hated it.) And so did that cult fave Napoleon Dynamite. (I thought it was O.K.) Then there was Coffee and Cigarettes, Jim Jarmusch’s series of Beckettian blackout sketches, which didn’t attract much of an audience but deserved to. And 50 First Dates, which leaned too heavily on Groundhog Day but managed to generate real emotion while finally convincing me that Drew Barrymore is a goddess. And let’s not forget Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, which features Jim Carrey at his darkest, meanest and most utterly hilarious.

Can we be adult about this

It was also a depressing year for love in the movies, and I mean that in a good way, too. For my money, Mike Nichols’ Closer, which stars Natalie Portman, Clive Owen, Julia Roberts and Jude Law as a pair of intersecting love triangles, goes places that Sideways isn’t even aware exist—the blackened heart of sexual jealousy, for one. Some found it shallow. I found it deeply shallow, and I mean that in a good way, too. While we’re on the subject of ailing, flailing relationships, allow me to mention We Don’t Live Here Anymore, which also features a pair of intersecting love triangles. (Laura Dern’s treacherous performance as a jilted wife should have been nominated.) And how about The Door in the Floor, where the perennially underrated Jeff Bridges, in that don’t-mind-me way of his, gives a wonderful performance as a beloved children’s writer who only wants what’s best for his wife. Finally, there’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a wonderfully disjointed movie about two people who are meant to be together and meant to fall apart, over and over again.

There’s gotta be more to life

I’ve come to dread the biopic, with all its inherent limitations. Real lives just can’t be squeezed into a smooth story arc, but that doesn’t stop directors from trying. Jamie Foxx does a beautiful job of impersonating Ray Charles in Ray, nailing the way the singer walked and talked and fingered a keyboard. If only the movie were prepared to dig as deep as he was. Instead, it tidies up Charles’ messy life, finds a childhood trauma to explain a man whose resentment and despair were lifted only when he broke into song. (That’s when Ray soars as well.) Likewise, Finding Neverland treats the creator of Peter Pan as if he’s Peter Pan, a man-boy who refuses to grow up. But isn’t that a cop-out? Didn’t James Barrie’s relationship with the real-life Lost Boys have to have been a little more complicated than that? Asked to play Barrie’s inner child, Johnny Depp himself seems lost. Toss The Aviator onto this pile and you’ve got three Best Picture nominees that, however interesting the lives they portray, have had the life sucked out of them.

Hurray for Hollywood

Sucking the life out of something is a Hollywood specialty, especially among the blockbustersaurs, but I was surprised at the number of cinematic T. rexes that managed to tread lightly this year, even do a little jig. Spider-Man 2 brought that mega-franchise to squirming life with masterful action sequences and soulful performances by Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst. Harry Potter 3 blotted out all memories of Harry Potter 1 and Harry Potter 2, thank God. And I, Robot, though cobbled together from old sci-fi flicks, still felt like a shiny new product—slick, sleek and surprisingly dark for a popcorn movie. That leaves Hellboy, the most purely enjoyable comic-book movie since Darkman, and Van Helsing, which I appear to be the only movie critic in the world who actually enjoyed. As for Troy, where Brad Pitt bared his butt but not his soul, and Alexander, where Angelina Jolie chewed scenery from one end of the known world to the other, what can you say about them that hasn’t already been said? O.K., I’ll say it again: They sucked.

Doc or I’ll shoot

For a while there, I was writing about a different documentary every week, each one of them determined to add its 2 cents to a presidential election that cost hundreds of million of dollars. And although I’m all for this kind of participatory democracy, even when (especially when?) the boom mic is dangling at the top of the frame, I must confess that I was relieved when Metallica: Some Kind of Monster came to town. Finally, a documentary about something other than all the lies George Bush has been telling! But this behind-the-music look at the world’s most venerable heavy-metal band as it struggles through a midlife crisis is actually much more than that. Directors Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky don’t have to mention This Is Spinal Tap when the group hires a therapist at $40,000 a month; the connection is understood. But as the headbangers start to share their feelings, especially the commercially viable one called rage, you gradually realize that the movie’s about the very meaning of rock ‘n’ roll. It’s a touchy-feely triumph.

Odds and ends

The Incredibles should have been nominated for Best Picture. Polar Express should have been nominated for Best Animated Feature. Shark Tale shouldn’t have. Oscar overlooked two excellent sports movies, Miracle and Friday Night Lights, the former featuring an admirably hard-nosed performance by Kurt Russell as the coach of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team. Oscar also overlooked Before Sunset, a wistful little film about a couple at the beginning of a beautiful relationship, and Open Water, a wistful little film about a couple about to be eaten by sharks. Dawn of the Dead and Shaun of the Dead will make a fantastic double-bill someday. So will The Passion of the Christ and Kill Bill: Vol. 2, Quentin Tarantino’s unjustly ignored revenge fantasy. But the movie this year that really got me thinking about the role of religion in our lives was the blissfully blasphemous Saved!, a teen comedy set in the wacky world of evangelical Christianity. JESUS LOVES YOU, reads the bumper sticker on one kid’s car, EVERYBODY ELSE THINKS YOU’RE AN ASSHOLE.

Between a Rock and a hard place

There’s been some grumbling out in La La Land ever since this year’s new host, Chris Rock, told Entertainment Weekly that handing out awards for art is “fucking idiotic.” Fasten your seatbelts, ladies and gentlemen, it’s going to be a bumpy night. And I mean that in a good way.

Q: My dear Ace, like any normal person, I’ve racked up a few parking tickets in my day. However, when the City slaps me one, sometimes it’s in a white ticket with postage-paid envelope, and sometimes it’s stuck inside a yellow envelope with no postage paid. What’s up with dat?—Peddie Krymes

A: Oh, Peddie, like every true Charlottesvillian, Ace warns you: Don’t get Ace started on parking woes! Once, for example, when Ace was scheduled to graduate from the Acme School of High Rollers, the local five-ohs sent Ace a special notice saying, “Oh no you don’t! Not before you pay us that [insert current Lotto jackpot figure here] in parking tickets you owe us, PRONTO.” Poor, poor Ace cried and begged and worked that Ace magic and, in the end, ponied up, dammit, and got that coveted diploma.

   But blah, blah, blah, sob story. Ace digresses.

   Since parking tickets equal money out of citizens’ pockets and into the City’s, Ace stopped by the City Treasurer’s office to get the financial scoop. The office is in charge of managing the paid parking fines and luckily, Jennifer Brown, City Treasurer, was tickled pink to help an Ace out. According to Brown, the City hasn’t used the white tickets with postage kindly paid for “at least two years.”

   About two years ago, she said, while looking for places to scrimp and save in their budget, the Treasurer’s Office decided to stop paying the parking ticket postage. While unable to say exactly how much, Brown described the amount as “substantial.” It was then that the City switched over to the small, yellow envelopes with the ticket tucked safely inside with no postage in sight.

   “Why shouldn’t you have to pay postage when you’ve parked illegally?” Brown inquired rhetorically. Um…er…uh…’cause no one wants to? Ah, logic.

   Brown, however, was not sure why one might have encountered an old school, postage-paid parking ticket of late. But, she hazarded the educated guess that there’s a meter maid riding around out there with an old ticket or two stashed in the patrol car. This meter maid then whips out the old tickets for the occasional parking violator with a guardian angel.

   For confirmation, Ace called in the weekly howdy-do to Maurice Jones, Director of Communications for the City. Jones agreed with Brown’s educated guess, adding the fun facts that thus far in the fiscal year, Charlottesville has raked in $334,580 in parking tickets. Break that down to $15-100 a pop and, Jones says, that’s a grand total of 13,421 tickets kindly bestowed upon the goodly law-breaking populace of Charlottesville.

Q: Dear Ace, My eyesight’s not as sharp as it once was, especially when driving at night. I can navigate the city roads, no problem, but put me out on the dark county highways—especially Route 29N and Route 250 Pantops—and watch out! Why doesn’t the County provide streetlights on these two major highways leading into the city? Who’s in charge of getting streetlights for highways like these?—Toonces

A: Now, now, Toonces, don’t try to pull a fast one on old Ace! Ace’s memory, if anything, is sharp and the “SNL” Renaissance of the late ’80s is just like yesterday to Ace. Yes, my friend, Ace remembers you and knows that you are a cat. Make that a cat with a bad driving record. So you can blame your bad driving on the County’s infrastructural failings all you want, but Ace knows the truth—paws, claws and a long, furry tail make driving off cliffs seem natural.

    Still, Ace feels your question is worthy. Looking into the matter, Ace was reacquainted with a little something known as “bumbling bureaucracy.” One would think that streetlighting would not be an uncommon subject among those charged with improving and maintaining our county’s highways and byways. Wrong. By inquiring about these newfangled “streetlights,” Ace may as well have been talkin’ Greek.

   Ace first called the Virginia Department of Transportation. VDOT immediately referred Ace to Juandiego Wade, Transportation Planner for Albemarle County. Ace phoned Wade, who immediately referred Ace back to Chuck Proctor, an engineer with VDOT.

   According to Proctor, VDOT does not call up Dominion Power and request streetlights “unless it’s considered a safety issue,” meaning that “there tend to be accidents” on the road at night. Apparently, routes 29 and 250 have not proven perilous enough for VDOT standards. The County handles all other streetlight concerns and requests, said Proctor.

   So, Ace called Wade back again, to share this information. After some hemming and hawing, Wade conceded that he would be the person to handle such concerns, but that since he took the job in 1991, he’s never had to process “that kind of complaint.”

   “I would be happy to do it,” Wade continued. “I’m thinking I’m the logical person…. If I get [that kind of request], I wouldn’t say, ‘No we don’t do that.’ I would take it, follow it through.”

   In short, if concerned citizens call Mr. Wade at 296-5823, ext. 3368 and request that lights be installed along these perilous routes into the city, then perhaps one day such lights shall illuminate the major arteries. Until that day, however, Ace has
just three words of advice: “Toonces, look out!!!!”

   (Crash, burn, bang.)

Ethnic-punk gypsy jazz band Gogol Bordello is the brainchild of Eugene Hütz, a Ukrainian-born former model who traipsed the world as a teenager after the Chernobyl disaster forced him and his family to leave Kiev. Inspired by everyone from James Chance and the Contortions to The Stooges and Johnny Cash, Hütz and his seven bandmates present a multicultural cabaret of performance art, klezmer, Charlie Chaplin and “Jackass.” Gogol shows have featured Hütz stubbing out a lighted cigarette on his body, for instance, and singing with sweat-drenched abandon while climbing a rope ladder as he did when the band first played Charlottesville in 2002. The complete lineup of Gogol Bordello, which now has three studio records to its credit, includes Hütz on guitar, along with Sergey Rjabtzev on violin, Yuri Lemeshev on accordian, Rea Mochiach on bass, Eliot Furgeson on drums, Oren Kaplan on guitar, and dancers Pamela Racine and Elizabeth Sun. The band returns for another gig here on Friday, February 18 at 10:30pm at Live Arts, 123 E. Water St. Tickets are available at Plan 9 on the Corner, Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar and Live Arts (call 977-4177, ext. 108). Hütz suggests people bring tambourines and “bellydancing outfits” to the show. He will be seen later this year in his feature film debut, Everything is Illuminated, directed by Liev Schreiber and starring Elijah Wood. C-VILLE talked to Hütz last week. An edited transcript of the interview follows.

Cathy Harding: What did you enjoy about your gig in Charlottesville a couple of years ago?

Eugene Hütz: Well, it was a great show and I think that we did have a special warmth from the crowd because even before the show we already had an amazing pre-party with [Matteus Frankovich of the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar], which was incredible. I remember that before going out on stage Yuri, the accordion player, threw up all over backstage, he was already so wasted. We have nice pictures of that on our website, we were backstage on a pink carpet of vomit and walnuts.

That’s just disgusting.

It’s not really disgusting, it’s the simple reality for the punk rock lifestyle. It happens. It wasn’t the first time, it wasn’t the last.

   We felt like everybody understands our gypsy hedonism and—what do you call it?—debauchery, and I think people in Charlottesville were really up for some debauchery.

Otherwise, does the band have any regular pre-show rituals?

Well, I’m not going to go into describing the thing itself, but in reality people in the band drink very systematically. I would even say scientifically. I mean, when you drink a lot you have to be methodical about it and you don’t throw in scotch and a cup of whiskey, guzzle down some vodka on the top. So it’s a very methodical progression of drink. For example, I always drink a bottle of wine and a couple shots of cognac, because all those things are made of grapes and they mix very perfectly.

   There is also gypsy gymnastics.

Gypsy gymnastics?

Yes, that Sergey our violin player and me always do religiously, and the girls—they have their own routine.

   And then right before walking out on stage there is a quick gathering of everybody with an absurd worship to a theme from a Russian cartoon.

You have cited Iggy Pop and The Stooges as among early inspirations.

Always.

What do you think of the fact that “Lust for Life” is now being used to hawk vacation cruises on TV commercials?

Yeah, I know what you mean about that. I don’t like them when I see it in that context, for sure, but I also know that that song was not written for that cruise commercial. It had a life of its own for the longest time.

   Iggy Pop was actually quite funny about it himself in one interview. He said, “Yeah man, I enjoy living in Florida now because everybody is so dumb they don’t even know who I am, they wouldn’t bother me” and he went on saying, “Yeah, the other night I hooked up with some girl who only next morning realized, ‘Oh you’re that guy on the cruise commercial.’”

With Gogol Bordello combining a gypsy point of view and punk point of view, you take the ultimate outsider stance. Yet the band has rising popularity. How do you manage to maintain that refugee point of view, as you grow more successful?

The soul of Gogol Bordello is basically unalterable. Our point of view is not driven by the fact that we came from one place and now we’re here. It’s driven by the fact that we keep on moving all the time. Within the band it’s an extended family; the atmosphere has been the same since the band started. There was always a massive group of friends and fans who support us who basically make our scene. Gogol Bordello never set up to be a part of celebrity culture or tried to become something that we are not. Gogol Bordello is not really just a band, it’s a culture of characters that pursue a certain way of life.

Describe it.

I would describe it as anarchist humanitarian beyond the politics culture. I would describe it as its own country. I would describe it as a collective that is largely driven by an ocean of cultural revolution. Cultural revolution is a state of mind and it’s a contagious stage of mind and it’s about understanding that you can’t really blame everything on politics or your background or other things. It’s really about believing in yourself and doing what you want to do and not whatever garbage was put in your head when you were growing up.

   I think it’s instinctive rage against social and political corruption. It’s a largely universal punk message, which is also universal gypsy message, which is also universal rebel message.

How does the monotony of being a refugee— the whole waiting-with-your-suitcases thing you’ve described before—compare to the monotony of touring?

Well, it does not compare to it all. I mean there are some bands that complain about monotony of touring, but with Gogol I never experience any monotony of touring because of the collection of characters in the band. Touring can get rough and it does get rough but every night we get totally rejuvenated by playing music. And so I’m certainly much more excited that these days I’m on the road because of my music and not because of the visa or passport problem.

There seems to be a lot of sweating at your shows between you and the band and the audience. Does the smell ever get unbearable?

Well, adding the perfume and the smell was the whole plan.

I suppose you get a good long shower when the whole thing’s over.

Not necessarily. Actually, most of the time, no.

Good to know.

Yes, I’m surprised that any girls come around.

What was it like being on a movie set? Did you feel like you were an outsider?

It was exactly what I needed because in my own work I always control a great deal of it. Be it music or be it the playing with Gogol Bordello or DJing or playing in the theater, which I’ve done before, people basically always let me play myself. After a while you start craving a challenge and that’s where this movie came in for me as a further performance challenge that gave me some growth because suddenly I was at an intersection of three different acting schools. Liev Schreiber, the director, is one of the best—if not the best—Shakespeare actor in America with a major theater background. Then Boris Leskin, who is a famous Russian actor who I actually grew up watching when I was, like, 5 years old—very old school Russian theater acting. And Elijah Wood was doing the whole Hollywood bonanza. So from those three I could pick and choose and learn some things for myself.

Where do you get your clothes and what do you do to take care of your mustache?

I wax my mustache with my self-made earwax.

   Fashion people find my look to be so striking and they all suspect some kind of a fashion statement, but in reality I simply look like everybody else in my family.

   My grandmother, who is the gypsy part of my family, was a tailor and so I grew up in a house that was always full of naked chicks who were trying on clothes on and off, because to be a tailor in the Soviet Union and Ukraine meant you were working basically illegally at home, which is what she did her whole life long. She always designed little things for my parents, for me, she sewed some things together. So I grew up around the sewing machine. I never professionally learned how to sew things up really good, but if I would want to make something I want to wear with some safety pins and some patches, I could always do that. So that’s where a lot of that very rough-made fashion that you see on stage comes from.

   And then here later in America, my girlfriend is a fashion designer so she also did a lot of things for Gogol Bordello and we designed many things together. The things I wear, the ones that look more fucked up—those are the ones I made. The ones that look really good are the things that she made.

Q: Ace, I feel like a terrible American for saying this, but I am sick of this Democratic presidential primary stuff. Every time I look at the paper, turn on the TV or listen to NPR all I hear is Dean this, Kerry that, Edwards something else. Has the primary hoopla always been this in-your-face? Or am I just particularly irritable this year?—Anita Break

A:Anita, you’re a dirty pinko Communist and if you don’t like the electoral process you should go back to Bulgaria or whatever country you came from.

Actually, Ace is right there with you on the ballot burnout. The coverage of this race has been inescapable since the Iowa caucuses in late January. And expect the intensity to increase locally even after the Virginia primary on Tuesday, February 10, as more politicians drop out of the race.

Is there something different this year to make the whole process more grating? Yes and no. No because it’s been a while since we had a Democratic primary in Virginia—1988, in fact—and all of us have probably forgotten how tiresome the politicking can get. And yes because, as local Democratic Party chair Lloyd Snook says, “It shouldn’t have even started yet.”

Snook explains that, if you go back about 20 yeiars, you’ll see that the first Democratic primary in the country—which is pretty much guaranteed to be New Hampshire due to party rules—didn’t take place until the first week of March, with nearly a month until the next one. But following some ’70s electoral reforms, primaries have become more and more common in states (replacing nominating conventions and caucuses)—and they’ve been coming earlier and earlier.

Snook says that’s in part because some brainiac realized that when politicians are jockeying for positions in a primary, they and their entourages come into states and spend beaucoup bucks on tourism, and even more on radio, TV and print ads. Add another notch to Ace’s political cynic belt, please.

The early primaries could have a negative effect on politics in general, Snook says, beyond leaving voters in stumping shock. Since the actual nomination dates haven’t changed—the Dems’ big convention will be July 26-29 in Boston—that leaves a big gap between the primaries and the official designation. And with campaign finance reforms passed a few years ago restricting spending amounts before the nomination and after, that can mean several months with little activity from political camps.

“That’s frustrating,” Snook says. “There could be a five-month dead time during which we know who the nominee is, but it’s not time to get the battle on. If I were trying to design a more rational system, there’s no reason we can’t have these primaries later.”

Folks like you, Anita, would probably agree. But Donna Goings, local volunteer for the beleaguered Howard Dean campaign, is all for a good, long fight. She and her fellow Deaniacs started actively campaigning just after Christmas, and she thinks it’s very healthy for the country.

“I think the public, who would rather watch something about Janet Jackson on TV, is probably tired of it. Most people are not political junkies and it’s getting old for them,” she says. “As time goes on it’ll only keep getting attention, and that can only be a good thing.”

Wait, I’m sorry—what was that part about Janet Jackson?

Maybe your last date was during the Clinton Administration. Maybe you refer to your spouse as That Guy Who Uses All the Toothpaste. Maybe you just need a little tenderness tune-up. Fear not. As Valentine’s Day approaches, C-VILLE gets to the heart of the matter. Enroll in our Woo U, listen up and find how to make love exciting and new….

Meet somebody
It’s the lottery principle: You can’t win if you don’t play. Find yourself unnaturally attached to “The Amazing Race”? Get out of the house. Learn to cook. Ask your friends to introduce you to all the singles they know. Set yourself up on at a busy intersection with a hand-lettered sign: “Will work for love.”

Laugh it up
Just to get you started here’s a copyright-free joke from the Internet:

Knock, knock

Who’s there?

Henry.

Henry who?

Henry Kissinger. Did you know that power is the
ultimate aphrodisiac?

I’m not opening the door, Henry.

Damn.

See it
Russell Grieger, a local marriage counselor, directs couples to draw a “marital vision.” Create your ideal relationship and then figure out together how to get there.

Listen harder
Show love to your sweetheart “in a way that matters to them,” says Russell Grieger. “I may be really good at buying you flowers,” he says by way of example, “but if it really matters to you that I help out around the house…I have to know what it is you want.”

Keep a lamp burning
For her tips, Richelle Claiborne, young poet and musician, sticks to the basics. “Be open to all possibilities,” she says.

Be single-minded

One is the sexiest number. As a marriage counselor, Russell Grieger sees a lot of couples. He says that for most of them, “if they can really connect in the bedroom then that carries over into the rest of their life…. Play, have fun and be exclusive.”

Pace yourself
Get a massage in the late afternoon, says James Witkower, who owns Great Hands Massage. It’s sure to improve your love life. “A massage loosens you up and increases blood flow,” he says. “Then, have a nice meal at home and then later on in the evening, in front of the fire, drink some vin chaud, and then relax and play good music with one another.”

Giggle the other direction

Everybody loves a flirt.

Dumb it down
Get real. Lower your expectations. Nobody’s perfect.

Keep a little something to yourself

Read something
Jane Austen: sexy? Alison Booth thinks so. The UVA English professor finds in Austen’s novels just the spark for tired love. “Don’t give a poem to a fling,” she says. “A great piece of literature can give that boost of imagination that any longstanding ‘love life’ with one person needs now and then…. There’s no time limit to enjoying something as witty as Pride and Prejudice, or the poetry of Shakespeare’s dangerously erotic sonnets.”

Don’t forget the sweet spot
You have to appreciate a chocolatier like Tim Gearhart, who says “keep an open ear, an honest heart, and give good chocolate.”

Leave in a hurry
Grab your sweetie and run out the door. No luggage, no cell phone, nothing but a credit card and a reservation.

Get cornered
If she were seated in a romantic corner table, winegrower Felicia Warburg Rogan would have “the most romantic evening a lady could expect,” were Meritage wine, foie gras, filet of beef and a “fabulous chocolate concoction” also on hand.

Get a piece
Miss Lucky Supremo says “sex is just the icing on the cake, it’s not the whole cake.”

Get “In the Mood”
For the straight deal on standards and love songs from the ’30s and ’40s, see 89-year-old clarinetist Dave Kannensohn. In fact, see him at Hamiltons’ most weekends. Here are some of his basics: Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, Anthony Newley.

Fly solo
Sometimes, the best moments are spent alone. Take some solitary time and give some.

Get licked
Sometimes, no matter how hard you look, you just can’t find love. When that’s your fate, says Gretchen Zimmerman, sex columnist for The Cavalier Daily, “get a cat. Instant cuddle buddy, dependently loves you, live-in, can’t start fights.”

Read the Bible
Miss Lucky Supremo, Charlottesville’s wisest drag queen and reigning Miss Club 216, sources her favorite definition of love to 1 Corinthians, 13:4: Love is patient, love is kind. Love keeps no record of wrongs. Some of love’s other graceful qualities are listed, too.

Watch the bloom
What does Charlottesville’s Flower Man, Bill Pensyl, say? “You give flowers for any occasion and it’s going to brighten someone’s day. Flowers are bright. Flowers are cheery. Flowers are alive… They’re a great ‘I’m sorry.’ If the guy has done something wrong, the guy sends flowers and the first thing that comes to her mind is, ‘Maybe he’s not the dummy I thought he was.’ No one’s going to send you flowers because they don’t like you,” he finishes. “They say, ‘Hey, I care’ or ‘I do love you.’”

Muscle up
“Find the creative and simple expressions of love.” That’s what Jodie Plaisance from Abrakadabra hair salon says. Try washing his car. Remember “the things that are the simplest tasks, but are the easiest for us to forget in our busy lives.”

Wake up fresh
“You have to treat every day as a new day. That’s the way it is.” And when jeweler Lee Marraccini says that, he’s talking from 33 years of experience with his wife, Pam.

Shorten your skirt
“Basically, remember how to keep your love young,” Jodie Plaisance says.

Remember the family jewels
Over at Montpelier, Lee Langston- Harrison, a curator, shared tips from Dolley Madison’s marriage to James: “She always did little things to make him feel comfortable and like he was king of the manor…a flower on the pillow or a special dessert.”

Don’t forget the magic words
Three little words can improve any relationship. We think you know what they are. Use them often.Contributors: Nell Boeschenstein, Alison Booth, John Borgmeyer, Richelle Claiborne, Tim Gearhart, Russell Grieger, Cathy Harding, Dave Kannensohn, Casey Kilmartin, Martyn Kyle, Lee Langston-Harrison, Bill LeSueur, Erin Loving, Lee Marraccini, Bill Pensyl, Jodie Plaisance, Felicia Warburg Rogan, Eric Rezsnyak, Ben Sellers, Miss Lucky Supremo, Liz Withers, James Witkower, Gretchen Zimmerman.

Contributors: Nell Boeschenstein, Alison Booth, John Borgmeyer, Richelle Claiborne, Tim Gearhart, Russell Grieger, Cathy Harding, Dave Kannensohn, Casey Kilmartin, Martyn Kyle, Lee Langston-Harrison, Bill LeSueur, Erin Loving, Lee Marraccini, Bill Pensyl, Jodie Plaisance, Felicia Warburg Rogan, Eric Rezsnyak, Ben Sellers, Miss Lucky Supremo, Liz Withers, James Witkower, Gretchen Zimmerman.