Crispin Glover is Batsh*t Crazy

I just had the most deranged experience of my life, and I had to share while it was still fresh in my mind.

First, let me say that for the most part, I find Portland's weirdness endearing. I like that we embrace all people. I like that we take the average everyday thing and put our own special twist on it. Other cities have organized bike rides. We have "The Worst Day of the Year Ride", a mid-February jaunt through urban Portland with stops for coffee and donuts and beer. Other cities have organized political rallies. We have organized "No-Pants Day" on public transportation. Other cities offer minigolf. We offer 3-D glow in the dark pirate themed minigolf. That's cool. I'm all about choice.

So when I heard that Four Days of Crispin Glover was coming to the Clinton Street Theater, I HAD to go. Crispin Glover is best known for his role as George McFly in Back to the Future. Since then, he's had a long illustrious history of being batsh*t crazy. In 1987, he appeared on the David Letterman show in striped pants and high-heels and proceeded to terrify Letterman into evicting him from the show entirely. (You can youtube it for your viewing pleasure.) Granted, few people knew then that Glover was playing a role. He was dressed as Rubin Farr, the main character of a low-budget, offbeat comedy he'd recently starred in with Howard Hesseman. In many ways, the movie sucks, but occasionally it strikes comedy gold, and Crispin Glover is 24 Karat. He IS Rubin, the sexually confused, cat-freezing, King of the Echo People.

I won't lie. I went to the theater tonight hoping to see just how crazy he was. And I was not disappointed.

He started out by presenting a slideshow. I assume these were excerpts from his book, on sale after the show and autographed by him. He read aloud as pictures and text flashed on the screen. Most of it made little sense to me, but he gesticulated and emoted as if he were reading Shakespeare. I only understood one of the stories at all, and it was somewhat clever. It was from the perspective of someone who has just murdered a boy to breed giant worms or dinosaurs in his back yard, I'm not sure which. Basically, it was from the perspective of someone who is batsh*t crazy, so I'm not sure how much credit he deserves for being himself. Finally he left the stage, and the film started. The movie was called Everything is Fine.

The opening scene is 4 people who have Downs Syndrome, one of them quite deformed. One hits another with a spade and he falls to the ground. Cut to one of them in his room, holding a snail in his hand. He smashes it against the glass. Then, regretful of his action, he tries to piece the shell back together. A female snail inches up, and asks him where her mate is. The man is silent. The snail sees her mate smashed and dead, and screams out in agony. The man leaves.

Cut to a giant mollusk opening up to reveal R. Crumb, the famous cartoonist, naked inside the shell. He is being dragged by a topless woman in a thong and elephant mask. Crispin Glover is playing a 45 record while dolls talk to him. Then a woman with large breasts and a monkey mask starts pleasuring R. Crumb, while a Shirley Temple dolls stands in front of a swastika and Heils Hitler. This was twenty minutes into the movie, and about the time that I gathered my things and walked out.

I headed for the bathroom first and contemplated my next move. On the one hand, this experience was going to make a great story. And wouldn't it get so much better after the movie, when Crispin came out for the Q&A? On the other hand, life is short, and it pained me, physically pained me, to watch people applauding to this celluloid diarrhea. A girl stood in line behind me in the bathroom and asked, "Are you enjoying the show?" I made the mistake of telling the truth. "No, not really, " I said. "Have you been to any of his shows before?" "No," I answered, but I've seen some movies and interviews and knew he was crazy. I just didn't know he was this crazy." She frowned and went silent. Apparently I'd offended her artistic sensibilities.

Here's the thing. I will grant that the number of geniuses among crazy people is probably higher than in the general population. I don't doubt that when your brain is wired to understand things that other human beings don't, that often neurons will misfire and stuff can get a little fuzzy up there. But, I am growing weary of this assumption that anyone who is weird, eccentric, or batsh*t crazy is by the very virtue of it, also a genius. NO! Sometimes, crazy people are idiots. And sometimes smart people are perfectly sane. Most of us are somewhere in between.

My one complaint about Portland is that we embrace the weird BECAUSE it's weird and not because it's of value. The only way to conform in this town is to not conform. And so those of us who take the middle road often feel out of place. And isn't it just as intolerant to shun the average Joe as the long-haired hippie?

Enough of my rant. I still love Portland. Here are some pictures to prove it:

Winter in Portland

How else have I been entertaining myself, you ask? Well, among other things, I have been slaving for the last month over my first Buffy fan video. I know it's nerdy. I'm ok with that. I embrace my weirdness. I heard the song, and it spoke to me. It needed to be youtubed. Without further ado:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBzPKKClw8s

I showed it to a couple of coworkers last week. Nick said, "So let me get this straight. She kills vampires, falls in love with at least two of them (which must be fraught with disaster), dies a couple of times, has a lot of dream sequences, and goes insane. Did I get it right?"

I told him I was proud to have summed up the entire series for him in just 4 minutes.

P.S. After some reflection, I'm feeling bad for bashing Crispin Glover so badly. For all I know, he is a genius, and I'm just a knucklehead who'd rather watch a show about a girl in love with two vampires.

Kenya Update

I just wanted to give a quick update. I got an e-mail from Hellene yesterday, one of the girls from my mentoring group in Narok. The word from her? Everything's fine. The violence is over now, and she's just worried about paying her school fees.

Strange thing about Kenya. There are simultaneous tendencies toward pretending everything is great and exaggerating for effect. Even the Swahili language dictates facade. When someone says "Habari yako?" ("How are you", or more literally "What's your news?"), you never tell the truth. You simply answer "Nzuri" (good). Then, if things aren't good, you can proceed with the truth.

I guess this is no different from many places in the U.S. Someone says "How are you?", and unless it's a close friend, we program ourselves to answer "Fine". That's where the Northwest is different. People here share, and I mean REALLY. I've lived in the south, so I'm used to people talking casually with strangers. But nothing like this. You can't buy a gallon of milk here without getting someone's life story. They just lay it out there.

When I was buying my bed a few months ago, the woman in front of me was telling the salesman how her brother had been dumped by his girlfriend who took all his furniture and he was now staying with her but didn't have a mattress to sleep on. He has money, a good job as a welder, but he just can't bring himself to buy furniture. Although it's entirely against my disposition, I love this openness. I chimed in with my own sad story, and she said she knew a nice single guy with a good welding job.

Back to Kenya, I can't say for sure how things really are in Narok. The news isn't necessary reliable. When I was living there, reporters were telling the world we were on the brink of famine from drought. It's true that crops were poor in some areas of the country, but there was still plenty of food in the markets. Granted, many Kenyans rely on what they can grow themselves, and I don't doubt that people were struggling. But I don't think words like "famine" and "genocide" should be used lightly. Many of my friends went to Rwanda during Peace Corps. And I spent time in Phnom Penh and the killing fields of Cambodia. Millions of people lost their lives.

I'm getting off track here, and I'm sorry. I don't mean to diminish the situation in Kenya. Tribal hatred does run deep, and the potential for eruption always exists. I'm just frustrated, because I'm so far away, and I can't get to the truth from here.

The situation in Kenya

I've been absent a few months, so it's sad to return on such a sour note. The post-election violence continues to escalate in Kenya, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced, including it seems, many people in Narok. I wish I had some special insight to impart about what's going on there, but I know very little myself. I've written e-mails to a few people in the country, but so far have had no responses.

I will say that my initial reaction to the 'genocide' as the newspapers reported was, "So?" I saw a lot of violence when I lived there, much of it tribally motivated. There were riots during the constitutional vote, so it didn't really surprise me that a presidential election, especially one so poorly handled, would spur more controversy. But as the days have worn on, the situation has not calmed down. Then I learned that all the stores in Narok are closed and that the food market was burned down. That hit close to home.

My friend Emily sent me this e-mail, and update from Agnes Pereiyio, a woman who runs a rescue center for Maasai girls in Narok. She is partially funded by a foundation run by Eve Ensler, author of the Vagina Monologues, and she was at the performance I went to in Nairobi in 2005. I remember how hopeful I felt then, watching the women and men of Kenya stand up against violence. I'm not sure how I feel now, but 'hope' is not the word:

V-DAY UPDATE - THIS JUST IN FROM KENYA

The Situation in Narok

• This conflict started on the night the election results announced the victory of President Kibaki. Conflict between the Kikuyu, Massai and Luo's broke out throughout Kenya. In the last few days the situation has been reported as improving in Nairobi, however it is important to know that in Narok, it is getting far worse.
  
• Stores are closed, there is no petrol for cars and the cost of food continues to inflate at exorbitant rates. Last week a head of lettuce was 20 shillings. It is now 150 shillings.
  
• On the night of Sunday, December 30th, Massai men burned the Narok food market, a primary source of income for the mostly female members of the Kikuyu tribe. Thus, in the last few days there has been no produce available in Kenya.
  
• Violence, as well, has become rampant. There have been nightly reports of Kikuyu in Narok burning Massai homes and a confirmed report of Kikuyus castrating a Luo man who later died of his injuries in Narok. Reports of sexual violence too have increased, leading to elevated concern amongst the women and girls of the region.
  

Peace Corps has also been forced to act. Volunteers in Western Kenya are being evacuated to Tanzania, while others have been consolidated to different areas. I suppose I should be grateful that I'm not there right now, but part of me feels I should be. It's still home somehow.