Susie Bright's Journal

The Most Awful People of the Year: Antigone Edition

 

I remember when The Golden Dukes was a real knee-slapper. 

For the last ten years, I’ve been invited to be a judge at Talking Points Memo, to choose the worst political actors of the previous 12 months.

I never dreamed the field of candidates would evolve into such a bunch of sad sacks.

Whatever happened to tinkle-fetish congressmen, caught buggering in tearooms?

Whatever happened to pols bribing suckers with white Caddies and a bag of coke?  

Whatever happened to laughs? 

Alas, 2018’s Duke nominees were lined with more cynicism than mink, more cold-eyed stares than functioning libidos. Mining comic gold out of these fuckers was harder than shoving a fat man through a needle. 

Be that as it may, I performed my duty. The gavel has spoken.

I’d like to dedicate my picks to the memory of Hunter Thompson, and his son Juan, who never met a Latin* they didn’t like.

Finally, check out the other judges’ picks at TPM, they'e quite convincing! 

 

Meritorious Achievement In The Crazy

Donald Trump

“Deus quem punire vult dementat”

Trump will be the first executive since Antigone’s uncle, to be completely undone by his defiance of death rites. “Crazy” is a cute way of putting it. 

Individual #1 will not mourn. He will not clean, bury, or honor the dead. He will leave his men out in the field. He will betray and besmirch his family. 

Rulers often meet ruinous ends because the economy or the climate betray them, aided by great plowing drifts of palace intrigue.  And Trump will suffer those torrents, too. 

But the reason the man will be despised forever, beyond memory of every Mueller count against him, is because the Fake King would not respect the dead, and because he feared the living. 

Trump is paralyzed by a neurotic fear of death, war, and dismemberment. But he will not bow his head. He will howl. 

Hence, if he does not mourn, he will burn. For that, the man loses the allegiance of people who’d otherwise have followed him over a cliff. Daddy, you’re through. 

 

Best Scandal

Michael Cohen, Esquire

“Ne eligat is qui donum accipit”

Cohen says to the judge he’d never forgive himself for the suffering his wretched behavior has caused his family, all at the expense of his brown-nosing hubris. 

Yet his contrite speech didn’t have the quite the deep pool of St. Sebastian’s blood I expect to see collecting on the floor.

This isn’t just about the embarrassment of Papa Cohen being a liar, leech, thug—  or that Mickey’s nose is so far up Trump’s ass, that only his toes are hanging out.  No. 

This isn’t even about disgracing whatever finely-wrought organized crime traditions arise from the wife’s side of the family, who presumably cannot believe any professional criminal could be this stupid. They thought “Fredo” was just a guy in a movie.

Here’s the anecdote that I won’t forget: Back when Cohen’s young son had his bar mitzvah, special guest Donald Trump was so late to the ceremony that he delayed the crux of the ritual, leaving the rabbis, congregation, and hundreds of guests just… hanging there. 

Trump finally burst in, just as the whole shebang was about to combust. Jokes on you, Mikey!— Trump cracked wise to all assembled. He NEVER planned or wanted to attend,  but his pathetic lawyer would not stop begging him.

Dear Mr. Cohen: Living on your knees is a hell of way to go, but you bled all of us for your trouble.  

 

Best Scandal, Local Venue

Scott Taylor & Leslie McCrae Dowless

“Qui vitulum tollit, taurum subduxerit idem”

An Election Fraud Con-Man tie!  Bless their hearts.

You two have rubbed the cheat right off the peach.  

Did you caucus beforehand, to gin a hiring hall for stone-cold hustlers? —Any vacancies? Do you want a job at the CIRCUS? 

Oh, sorry— the flying pigs have too much DIGNITY. 

 

Best Campaign Trail Gaffe

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith

“Cuiusvis hominis est errare, nullius nisi insipientis in errore perseverare” 

Pin the gold ribbon on the white supremacist potty mouth.

It’s not a gaffe for Cindy. It’s a lifestyle. 

 

Literary Achievement In 280 Characters

Speaker Paul Ryan

“Dives aut iniquus est, aut iniqui heres”

Paul Ryan, whose image appears in the visual dictionary for “Craven,” had this to tweet for upbeat news in 2018: 

“A secretary at a public high school in Lancaster, PA, said she was pleasantly surprised her pay went up $1.50 a week! She says that will more than cover her Costco membership for the year.”

A DOLLAR-FIFTY A WEEK isn’t enough to put spam on the table.

Speaker Ryan is a stain upon the working class traditions of Wisconsin.  If he had to live for a week like he expects “lessers” to endure, he would fold like a paper bag. 

 

Outstanding Ineptitude In The Cabinet

Ryan Zinke 

“Cuilibet fatuo placet sua calva”

My favorite part of Zinke’s balls is that he refused to quit, until he got to throw his lavish end of year Xmas Party. 

“Bachmanity Insanity” has NOTHING on our boy. 

Ho ho ho, the Interior Secretary won’t leave, until he gets the last fruitcake! All the Who’s down in Whos-ville can just suck it! 

Word is, Santa Claus left Ryan a big coalpile… 

Ryan’s underneath it. 

 

Best Conspiracy Theory

Ann Coulter

“Cui caput dolet, omnia membra languent”

I was once invited to speak at an august institution, Tulane University, in their grandest hall, where presidents, kings, and even Grace Kelly once graced their stage. I shivered to step out on the same boards. 

After the curtain fell, I made a point to speak to the stage manager, a gentleman far past retirement age, who had lectern memories going back to FDR.

“Tell me, Mr. Fox,” I said, “Whose speech, in all of history, left the greatest impression on you?”

“Oh that would have to be yours, Miss Bright,” he said. 

“No, I’m serious!” 

“Well, I’ve been moved to tears and prayers more times than I can count,” he said. There’ve been so many ‘greats’… but I have to tell you, the worst, the very worst… I can’t even call a human being, that I ever hosted here; she desecrated the room…. Oh my goodness, I can’t even say her name but that hair and the things she said have scarred my heart forever.” 

“Ann Coulter?” 

We hugged each other like there was no letting go.

 

*About those Latin phrases...

My parents grew up at a time when public school kids studied Latin, and if you were a “nerd,” as they were, it became quite fun to play with many of the classic phrases and choice words.

Later in life, quite by accident, I discovered in my talk-a-thons with Hunter Thompson that he was a Latin philosophy lover of the first water!  And his son Juan continues the tradition. I was thinking of them all this winter, and the Roman circus of our political fates. Below is a translation of some of the phrases I used in this round of the Dukes! It really is remarkable how apt they are.

 

On TRUMP:

Deus quem punire vult dementat

"Whom God will destroy, he first make mad."

 

On MICHAEL COHEN:

Ne eligat is qui donum accipit

"Beggars can’t be choosers"

 

On TAYLOR & DOWLESS:

Qui vitulum tollit, taurum subduxerit idem

"He that steals an egg will steal an ox."

 

On HYDE SMITH: 

Cuiusvis hominis est errare, nullius nisi insipientis in errore perseverare

"Any man can make a mistake; only a fool keeps making the same one."

 

On RYAN:

Dives aut iniquus est, aut iniqui heres

"No one gets rich quickly if he is honest."

 

On ZINKE:  

Cuilibet fatuo placet sua calva

"Every fool is pleased with his own folly."

 

On COULTER: 

Cui caput dolet, omnia membra languent

"When the head is sick, the whole body is sick."

 

 

Painting: The Punishment of Thieves, William Blake, 1824-1827

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Top 10 Audiobooks I Produced This Year: 2018 Edition

 

It’s been a big year here at "Bright Audio Industries"... launching a surprise attack of John Oliver’s  “A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo,” casting new diaries and essays by Dr. Martin Luther King— and recording dearly-departed authors who changed my life, like Nancy Friday, and Midnight Cowboy’s James Herlihy.

But that’s not all...

I think the most profound productions I cultivated this year were not in the English language at all... READ ON!  You can listen to excerpts on each link. 

*In case you wonder what I’m talking about— I am Audible’s Editor at Large. It's a job of many hats, but it includes acquiring the rights to wonderful classics, originals, and new books that have never been performed in audio. After we work out the plan with the artist, then the casting and recording begin. I am only one among many who create each audiobook. It’s a pleasure to be intimately involved from the germination to the moment we press “play."

 

Susie’s 2018 Top 10

from The Bright List

 

Santa Cruz Noir, Susie Bright - editor

Starring: James Patrick Cronin, Richard Ferrone, Susie Bright, Beth Lisick, Liza Monroy, Bailey Carr, Florence Cuddihy, Dan Bittner, P. J. Ochlan, Jon Bailiff, Derek Stephen Prince, Eliza Foss, Almarie Guerra, Therese Plummer, and Michael Crouch

I got my start in audio, casting and recording short stories from my erotic anthologies. What a pleasure to create the same suspense, in an Akashic Noir mystery series.

My home town is Santa Cruz, and it was definitely time for our turn in the shadow side. After all, we were once the “Murder Capital of the World” -- but we’re more commonly called: paradise.

Each of the twenty stories, set in neighborhoods and surf breaks all over town, has a distinct and perfect voice fit. I couldn’t be happier.

 

Nobody’s Family is Going to Change, by Louise Fitzhugh 

Starring: Bahni Turpin

Louise Fitzhugh was a genius at taking the viewpoint of youthful protagonists. “Harriet" in Harriet the Spy and The Long Secret, were so ahead of their time when I read them in the 1960s--who ever saw a girl protagonist like that? 

When I grew up and discovered Fitzhugh lived as a lesbian in New York City in the heart of Greenwich Village in the 50s... it all made sense.

Nobody’s Family is Going to Change is her early 70s novel that no one knows about-- mind-boggling when you consider how well it holds up today. It’s about an upper-middle class African-American family on NY’s West Side. The parents are reeling that their two young children are complete gender misfits, who have no intention of falling into line.

Emma is fat, sick of being ribbed about it, and wants to be a fierce lawyer. She  is appropriately rude, skeptical, and righteous as grown-ups fail all around her. Her little brother Willie has a definite “air” about him, and wants to drop out of school and become a tap dancer-- just like his gay uncle.

“Mom and Dad” are ready to lock them up and throw away the key, until they fall in line! This story has evergreen dilemmas and lessons for ANY age: Who can you change? What if your goals clash with your parents' -- or even the whole world's -- wishes?

Beyond lessons, Emma as a character feels so real, it's sheer fun to follow her secret plans for world domination. She's a heroine for *right now.* As she tells her mother, "I can and I will ... I can decide my whole life."

Bahni Turpin brings the vinegarred, chip-on-your-shoulder attitude of an adolescent girl fed up with her family. A-plus performance.

Gotham, by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace

Starring: Victor Bevine

Yes, this is the Pulitzer prize-winning history of New York City that redefines the City’s biography. Breathtaking!

At the top of my many time-travel fantasies, is the pre-settlement island that became Manhattan. Jacob Steendam's description, "Oh this is Eden!" barely begins to describe its clear rivers and seemingly boundless forests.

Burrows reexamines everything you thought you knew about New York City, from her original inhabitants living a cyclical, symbiotic, and nomadic life on the islands, to the origin myth of a "trade of land for a string of beads,”— to how it became the "greatest city in the world."

Narration is especially important for a book you’ll be spending hours with, and Victor Bevine never gives the lecture-hall vibe. He finds the rhythm and the humor where it’s needed. Really, my hat’s off to him. A masterpiece. 

Season of the Witch, by James Herlihy 

Starring: Sarah Mollo-Christensen

James Herlihy wrote Midnight Cowboy— which became a cinematic revolution in the 1970s. But Herlihy was a gay author, pre-Stonewall, who knew the South and Manhattan in equal measure. He knew all about “running away” and what it was like to set off for the great unknown in the mid-20th-century.  Witches abound!

For a book that is so distinctly "of its time," the spiraling end of the hippie era, the performance of Sarah Mollo-Christensen is absolutely fresh. Her characters are distinct and heartfelt.

Her narrator, "Witch" never veers into parody-- even with vocabulary that describes angel-colored auras, peace marches, “Can you dig it?" and "Far out!" It sounds like she means it-- this ain’t no The Brady Bunch.
Anyone who appreciates a strong searcher off to find herself in the big city will love this.

 

Men in Love, by Nancy Friday

Starring: Tyler Ryan, Cindy Harden, Raquel Harris, Biff Summers, Kevin Frost, Phil McCracken, and Jean-Paul Mordrake 

When I first worked as the sole-employee of Good Vibrations, we had a tiny bookshelf of “good” sex books. Women would come in and say, “Why do fantasize the way I do? Is it right? Is it normal? What if I’ve never had a fantasy, or even an orgasm?”

I would hand them the full trio of Nancy Friday’s erotic interview books. Nancy was truly one of the best interviewers and sexual interpreters who ever put pen to paper. A genius at it. When she died last year, I was stunned to realize that her gazillion-selling books had never been recorded. I knew why: the audio industry, pre-Audible, was so prudish they never would have recorded such frank and women-centric discussion.

If you listened to Secret Garden and Forbidden Flowers, you know how great they are. Did you know Nancy did a book about men’s fantasies, too? It’s not the usual laugh-and-a-wink— these men were so honest with her. Nancy Friday finds what men really think about — beyond judgement — in their erotic minds. It’s essential listening for understanding the American sexual psyche. The variey and skill of the narrators make the listener feel they are right there in the heads of all these men.

 

The Radical King, by Martin Luther King, Jr., with Cornel West, editor 

Starring: LeVar Burton, Gabourey Sidibe, Cornel West, Mike Colter, Danny Glover, Wanda Sykes, Leslie Odom Jr., and Michael K. Williams

What an honor to bring King’s fiery, deep and truly radical thinking to Audible. This is the first time the MLK Estate allowed actors to interpret King’s works, and we dreamed big. It is even more transcendent than I dared hope.

King, to the un-initiated, was sometimes their go-to historical figure for simplistic love-thy-neighbor aphorisms. NOPE. Dr. West's book shows why King was such a threat to the establishment of the 1950s and 60s. Radical, revolutionary, and with a heart big enough to hold the whole world! 

The all-star cast bring new perspective to King’s words. It’s surprising how the meaning can change when you don’t hear that inimitable vibrato.

Be sure to grab the free chapter with my favorite, Wanda Sykes, taking it to the limit...

La route de Chlifa, by Michèle Marineau 

Starring: Maxime Dugas

More than 7 million people speak Quebeçois French in Canada— it's a beautiful, language and culture. What most outsiders don’t know, is that if the British conquerors in the 18th and 19th century had had their way, no one would be allowed to speak French, practice their religion, or thrive in their culture. The attempts to destroy their families and communities was brutal, must like what happened to the Metis and other indigenous people of the North. The prejudice against the Quebeçois, and the onslaught against their language, continued until the 1960s, when the “Quiet Revolution” turned the tables. —It really wasn’t that quiet! 

To this day, language is still a battleground. Quebec thrives in its dramatic, cinematic, and storytelling traditions. They have fantastic radio programming. Their special insight into the geopolitics of the North, their science fiction and fantasy, their existential Catholic sensual perspective-- it’s unforgettable.  

But you know what? NO ONE had ever recorded audiobooks of French-Canadian literature, the soul of Quebec, the novels, les histoires, the tales around the fire. Incroyable!

In 2017, I got to travel to Quebec and Montreal to talk to authors and publishers, in my terrible broken French, about the possibility of recording classic Quebec authors, with the province's finest actors, in local studios. Talk about a crazy idea— everyone wondered what cloud I’d dropped off of. Of course, there was a commercial interest, but the linguistic destiny of this project was not lost on me or anyone else— this is culture-changing. 

If my linguist parents were still alive, I think they would be more proud of my work in this area than any other. I’ve produced 56 Quebecois audiobooks so far, and I hope those of you who love this part of the world, will savor each and every one.  

Here is one of my favorites:

--Publié dans les années 90, La route de Chilfa est peut-être plus pertinente aujourd'hui que dans les années intermédiaires. L'histoire d'un immigrant et d'un réfugié, son intégration dans son nouveau pays, son expérience morale, et son chagrin. Il brûlent!

Raconté en trois parties, l'histoire fonctionne de l'extérieur dedans. Le livre commence du point de vue d'un camarade de classe de Montréal observant les ondulations faites par un nouveau gamin à l'école, Karim. Ensuite, une narration à la troisième personne des événements traumatisants au Liban qui ont chassé Karim de son pays, nous voyons ce qu'il fuit, mais aussi ce qu'il a laissé derrière lui. Finalement, Karim lui-même raconte qu'il a examiné sa blessure et qu'il a décidé de vivre pour ceux qui lui manquent.

Ceci est une histoire qui change la vie.

A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo, by Marlon Bundo, and Jill Twiss

Starring: Jim Parsons, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Jeff Garlin, Ellie Kemper, John Lithgow, Jack McBrayer, RuPaul

What a whirlwind it was, readying this top-secret production for Audible!

When Jon Oliver’s show called me, I realized we were about to take the world by storm. At a time when LGBTQ rights are being assailed in the White House, Jon and his friends found a mole in their midst— Vice President Pence’s own pet rabbit, Marlon Bundo. Who knew he was the sweetest, littlest, gay bunny ever? 

You recognize all the actors I’m sure— they had a BALL doing this.

Oliver is donating 100% of the book’s royalties to The Trevor Project and AIDS United.

 

Gasa Gasa Girl, by Naomi Hirahara 

Starring: Brian Nishii

Japanese version here, narrated by Yoshi Amao.  

Naomi and I became acquainted because she is a Santa Cruz local turned Edgar-winning novelist, and I was lucky enough to have her contribute a story to my collection, Santa Cruz Noir. 

Our collaboration drew me to her remarkable series of California novels. I am smitten with her hero, Mas Arai: Hiroshima survivor, Los Angeles gardener, and super-sleuth. He is cantankerous, he is an immigrant and a survivor; and his grudging care for his son-in-law and estranged daughter take us into worlds I’d never seen. 

Hirahara writes effortless mystery and has a distinctive perspective that I always look forward to hearing. Narrator Brian Nishii fully inhabits Mas's character. You are utterly convinced he IS Mas.

Praise Song for the Butterflies, by Bernice L. McFadden 

Starring: Robin Miles

I've been waiting all summer for this release. Bernice McFadden is one of my favorite writers— she's a master of spare language; and the sharp detail that will unravel a tale as dark as any in the news. The image of a peanut rolling up to a yellow flip-flop, which then catalyses a dreadful action-- it’s burned into my mind's eye.

"Praise Song" is in the expert hands of audiobook star, Robin Miles. I can hardly think of anyone who could relate each character's flaws and troubles, as well as tenderness, with so much grace.

Maleficium, by Martine Desjardins

Starring: Danny Boudreault, Maxime Dugas, Martin Rouette, Patrick Baby, Sebastien Dodge, Annick Vermette, Nicolas Landre, et Thiery Dube

Dark erotic fantasies in the Quebeçois tradition of The Sacred Heart? Yes, please!

(I would like to state here that I did NOT censor the beautiful cover art for this audiobook, and I hope you’ll be able to enjoy a copy without the offending black bar!)

Cette orgie exquise des sens, sans aucune excuse, évoque "Le décalogue." Sept hommes racontent l'histoire de la sorcière qui les maudit - répandant des commérages malins - jusqu'à ce qu'elle ait elle-même un tour. Cela satisfait ma soif de fantasmes érotiques sombres, de changements de perspective narrative et de douce et douce vengeance.

 

Thank you to Willow Pennell, for helping prepare and write all these reviews.