Drug war

I have no problem with people bashing Rush Limbaugh, or any prominent blowhard of whatever political persuasion. But I'm disturbed by one tactic in the current anti-Limbaugh snarkfest: Attacking him for his addiction to pain medication. "Drug-addled," sniffs Demo politico Paul Begala. "A self-described prescription-drug addict who sees America from a private jet," tut-tuts New York Times opiner Timothy Egan. The jabs refer to the episode that began in 2003, when Limbaugh admitted an addiction to painkillers and went to treatment.

First of all, Begala's claim doesn't make sense. Limbaugh apparently was successfully treated for his addiction, so barring evidence of a relapse, he's not drug-addled. Indeed, the fact that he lives in sober clarity ought to be disquieting enough. His ravings would be less disturbing, not more, if they were simply the product of a drug-addled mind.

More importantly, no one volunteers to be an addict, and it's not fair to attack Limbaugh for his addiction. In fact, it sets a disturbing precedent, because Limbaugh did what you're supposed to do. He admitted he had a problem and got help, and he did so before his addiction got someone killed. But now his addiction -- and recovery, because we very likely wouldn't know about his addiction unless he had sought treatment -- is just so much political ammunition.

The message to struggling addicts is chilling: If you admit your problem and seek help, you'll regret it.

Good word

"I'm fond of quoting Peter Cook, who talked about the satirical Berlin cabarets of the '30s, which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the Second World War."

-- Tom Lehrer

Magic kingdom

What if there were a giant, expensively mounted theme park devoted not to, for example, the Disney universe but rather the Doonesbury universe? Instead of friendly and jubilant, the oversized characters walking around would be wryly detached, and/or stoned.

Might win an Oscar

Last night Ereck and I watched the wondrous 1949 film The Third Man, and I was pleased by Anton Karas' indelible zither score. During the film I had a thought, and afterward I pulled out an old Beatles bootleg I bought in high school, something I hadn't listened to in years. Sure enough, there it was: "The Third Man Theme" as rendered by the Fab Four. It's a brief, very loose performance, presumably from the ragged Let It Be sessions.

But the fact that the Beatles had "The Third Man Theme" in their repertoire speaks to the fascinating range of their listening. They played music informed by so many genres besides their trademark rock 'n' roll: country, Broadway, Indian, musique concrète, circus, Baroque -- and, in this instance, iconic movie music. Great stuff.

The Beatles - The Third Man Theme

Magic just off the I-5

Yesterday I visited Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif. I kept readers up to date on my doings in a series of text messages, which I'm reproducing here.

1/21/09 11:12 AM
Greetings from Disneyland. About to ride Autopia. This is where you can drive a car to the theme park so you can drive a smaller car inside the theme park.

1/21/09 11:31 AM
About to board the monorail. Did you know I love monorails? xxoxo

1/21/09 11:37 AM
The monorail conductor sounds a little like Jeff Spicoli. xoxo

1/21/09 12:01 PM
The problem is getting stuck next to a particularly unpleasant family in a particularly long line. xoxox

1/21/09 12:08 PM
Do I recall correctly that Nixon press secretary Ron Ziegler operated the Enchanted Tiki Room? [Ed. note -- it was the Jungle Cruise.]

1/21/09 1:05 PM
Lines are getting longer; tensions are rising. The girl operating the Pinocchio ride just snapped at the woman in front of me. xo

1/21/09 1:12 PM
All safety announcements are in character and bilingual.

1/21/09 1:28 PM
Sleeping Beauty is saved by eros. xoxo

1/21/09 1:54 PM
Disneyland subtly or not so subtly reinforces the nuclear family. The Show White ride operator was weirded out by me riding alone in a car meant for 4 to 6. xo

1/21/09 2:08 PM
The irony is that Snow White is a story about people not in conventional families -- single women, a group of men who live together. xoxo

1/21/09 2:50 PM
Pirates of the Caribbean ride features wench auction.

1/21/09 3:02 PM
Every ride exits into gift shop. xoxo

1/21/09 3:39 PM
Either I'm on acid or I'm in the enchanted tiki room.

1/21/09 3:45 PM
Music in line at jungle cruise: "Moonglow."

1/21/09 4:29 PM
The American vernacular songbook is alive and well at Disneyland. I feel like I've heard five different versions of "Home on the Range."

1/21/09 4:31 PM
Now I'm just waiting for the live barbershop performance to start.

1/21/09 4:47 PM
It was the greatest thing ever, a barbershop flag ceremony. America!

1/21/09 5:40 PM
INDIANA JONES RIDE HOLY FUCKING SHIT

1/21/09 5:41 pm
Surrey with the Fringe on Top

Luxury

A joke, right? No?

Good word

"Montalban, who was born in Mexico in 1920, is one of those potentially major actors who never got the roles that might have made them movie stars. He appeared to have everything else -- a marvelous camera face, the physique of a trained dancer, talent, a fine voice (he could even sing), warmth, and great charm. Maybe the charm was a drawback -- it may have made him seem too likable, a lightweight (though it didn't stop Charles Boyer). In Montalban's first English-language picture, M-G-M's Fiesta, in 1947, which featured Esther Williams as a matador, he danced with Cyd Charisse. M-G-M next had him dancing with Charisse and Ann Miller in a Kathryn Grayson-Frank Sinatra film called The Kissing Bandit; it was said that the dancing was added after the executives saw the movie -- they wanted to give the customers something. He kept working -- in pictures such as On an Island with You, with Charisse and Esther Williams, and Neptune's Daughter, and Sombrero, starring Vittorio Gassman, and the low-budget My Man and I, in which he played a sexy handyman and displayed his pectorals, and Latin Lovers, in which he carted Lana Turner around in a tango. He had secondary parts in Sayonara and Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man, and in Cheyenne Autumn, and he brought conviction to every role that anyone could bring conviction to, but, after almost twenty years in Hollywood, there he was in 1966 in The Singing Nun, with Debbie Reynolds, and, with Lana again, in Madame X. He seems to have lived a (lucrative) horror story, especially when you think of the TV commercials and his ever-ready smile on 'Fantasy Island.' It may be that Khan in 'Space Seed' was the best big role he had ever got, and that the continuation of the role in The Wrath of Khan is the only validation he has ever had of his power to command the big screen."

-- Pauline Kael