Hi everyone, Ross A. Lincoln here. Greg has decided to be nice enough to let me return and hijack his site occasionally, so, as you can see, here I am, as it were. So to speak. Or something.

For those of you who don’t recall, or have no money-funding idea who I am, here’s a previous post of mine that I’m somewhat proud of. Also, here’s something that garnered a surprising amount of attention, considering its profanity and lack of cohesive organization.

Anyway, why am I here now? I’m glad I asked that question. Last Saturday night, I emerged from my habitual documentary asceticism and finally, at long last, saw An Inconvenient Truth. Finer critical minds than mine have already discussed and promoted the film at length and I am, I’m sad to say, rather late enough seeing it that my telling you you should do so will be a redundant gesture. By which I mean to say that you’ve probably already seen it, a long time before I did and therefore, you’re probably thinking to yourself that I am a serious poseur.

However, if you must know what I think, it’s this: An inconvenient Truth is a damnedly important movie, concise and gripping, fact-filled enough to satisfy nerds like me but brisk enough not to bore everyone else, and most importantly, it makes an immensely compelling argument. Al Gore is impassioned and persuasive and, surprisingly to people who failed to watch Futurama, funny. Basically, this film is the Al Gore I wish we’d seen during the entire 2000 campaign, instead of just the last two months. I think he could have won had he been like this the whole time.

Naturally, had he been like this, he would have never selected that moralizing sycophant from Connecticut to be his running mate, but I digress.

As I was saying. Seeing an inconvenient truth only made the contrast between Al, and the feces flinging simpleton the Supreme Court selected for us, all the sadder. But, truth be told, I don’t know if AIT will convince the rapture believers and their allies, the corporate prostitutes global warming “skeptics,” who are unlikely to believe any evidence short of Dallas, Texas submerged under ocean water, without first attributing it to either the return of Jesus, or natural variations in massively destructive human-killing environmental norms. However, I suspect anyone who isn’t reflexively inclined to ignore the message because Al Gore, who is a NERDY NERD WHO NERD and who is also a BIG FAT LIAR WHO IS CRAZY and who HAS A BEARD and has CONSULTANTS DRESS HIS BECAUSE HE IS A FAG AND A NERD, is the messenger will probably, hopefully, find it convincing or at least, compelling enough to learn more.

None of this is new to you, so why bring it up? Because it was a singularly impressive night and I have to share it with you. Impressive How? Well, like so many more elite blog type people in the months prior to its release, I got to see An Inconvenient Truth garnished with a slice of live-and-in-person Al Gore himself. The film is part of AFI’s current film festival line up, and they showed it in Downtown LA, out in the open, in a corporate park which shall remain nameless but happens to be immediately next to MOCA. Al was there to speak, or more accurately, to thank us for showing up and to tactfully not respond to cries from the audience asking him to run for president again. He didn’t actually say much more than banal flattery of the film industry (It was a film festival after all, and not a political event so to speak.) but he sincerely believes in the fight against global warming and that kind of passion, even buried underneath schmoozefest platitudes, is infectious.

So sure, Al was interesting, but he’s been touring in support of the film, so his being there, while cool, was somewhat to be expected.

So if it wasn’t Al, was it the all-too-expected appearance of Los Angeles’ Mayoral Homeboy, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa? Well, in a word, no. For those of you who don’t know, Mayor Villaraigosa is, to quote Rakim, a smooth operator operating correctly. I’ve never seen, (and I came this close to shaking Bill Clinton’s hand in 1996), anyone as acutely politico-ish as V-Chip. You can almost feel his smarmy Vulcan Mind Meld, sizing you up, determining if not talking to you will adversely affect his career. Like a used car salesman at an Amway convention, seeing V-the Series among other politicians of note is to see an epic battle of wills, a test of who can butter the crowd up for the next election the most, and it’s made all the more hilarious when he’s the only one playing.

Mayor A-V club has to be anywhere a prominent politico shows up so he can bask in reflected, parasitized glory, so it makes sense that he’d be at the showing of An Inconvenient Truth. Fortunately for those of us watching, and for Los Angeles, Mayor V. might emit slick like a short wave, but he does deserve some praise because he has taken steps to bring LA in accord with the Kyoto accords (and to be honest, I believe his pledges to make LA government more ethical.)

So no, the highlight wasn’t the ubiquitous appearance of Mayor V.

The highlight was something magical. Something… amazing. Something… cliffhangery…

Yes Ladles and Manticores, the highlight of Saturday’s showing of AIT was a performance by none other than Jon “Blaze of Glory” Bon Jovi, with special assist from his main homie Ritchie “Totally riding dirty over Heather Locklear” Sambora, playing a selection of acoustic versions of ‘classic’ Bon Jovi material.

Did I mention that it was acoustic. As in unplugged? The only way you could possibly get more authentic is if you actually had a printer, feeding JBJ’s complete genetic code out of his belly. Seriously folks, we’re talking hellafied authenticity.

JBJ and R-Samb totally warned us that if we don’t solve global warming, we’d be “Living on a Prayer”. They reminded us that increased cataclysmic climatological rain would make us “Slippery When Wet.” They protested that pollution was like “Bad Medicine,” and they vowed that global warming was “Wanted, Dead or Alive”.

Or at least, they did all that in my imagination. In real life, they just “aw shucks”ed their gratitude for being invited to play, and then “treated” the crowd to 5 or 6 painfully earnest acoustic songs. It was awesome, in my exciting new definition of awesome, “that which is awkward to experience”.

Now, they did perform a cover of “What’s so funny about peace love and understanding?”, though their version apparently retitled it “What’s o’funny about peaaa loooof n’ understainderrb”, which is an admittedly exciting interpretation to say the least. Fortunately, they did, in fact, also play “Wanted, Dead or Alive”, which made my night. And to be fair, they’re on the side of the angels here, so good for them. I for one am shocked that JBJ and Ritchie have managed to age without humiliating themselves too much, and all joking aside, if they ended up putting people in front of the screen, good for them.

That doesn’t change the fact that it was just weird, and soooo cheesy. The single weirdest thing is the reception they got from the crowd. I live in a bubble, a hermetically sealed music-snob environment in which I can actually pretend that Scott Walker is influential to musicians Americans actually care about, and that loving Supertramp(1) is completely compatible with the Buzzcocks. When I’m forced to step outside that pathetically isolated state, the results are jarring and uncomfortable. In short, people are not as cool as I think I am.

So when my friends and I, seconds before leaving for the event, learned that BJ and RS were playing, we assumed, at best, that they’d get a lukewarm response, general polite whistles with somewhat perfunctory applause. To our amazement, while we were suffering in bemused and impatient silence, the crowd went ballistic. Like, thank god the VP was there because I frankly wasn’t interested in seeing the inevitable toplessness from LA’s botoxed, breast implanted cadre. That kind of ballistic.

It. Was. Weird.

Then, after they finished, my main man V-lo came out to mop up the reflected praise, and invited the Audience to thank them for playing. He said “Let’s give a hand for Jon Bon Jovi, wasn’t he great?!?” Then he remembered that this Bon Jovi fellow he’d just heard about also had a friend. So he added: And of course, Ritchie Sa-”

(awkward pause while he fumbled through his mental rolodex for the name)

“Ritchie SanTORA!”

Yes, much like Ash in Army of Darkness saying “Klatuu… Verata… Neuhhuhuh”, Mayor V. actually Bruce Campbelled his way through Ritchie Sambora’s name. I just hope the Army of Suckness he awoke doesn’t end up destroying Los Angeles. Mayor Villaraigosa, I hold you responsible if skeletal demons destroy my apartment. Also, seriously, you need to work on your bullshit technique. Even children could see you were just sort of winging it.

And it isn’t like Sambora is hard to remember. I mean, seriously, Antonio, your last name is Villaraigosa. I know you made that shit up when you got married, by combining your last name (Villar) with your wife’s (Aigosa). Now that is cool. Really cool in fact. What isn’t cool is how damned difficult it is to pronounce your name without feeling like an estupido gringo. You might as well have come up with “Antidisestablishmentariansmith.” But don’t. I’m keeping that for if I get married.

My point is that Villaraigosa = degree in Liguistics to pronounce properly; Sambora = degree in Rockin’ out. So you explain what the heyo you were doing when they rocked the house back in the 80s. Because it wasn’t rockin’ out to New Jersey’s bad boys, that’s for sure. Damn it, I want answers!

In the meantime, Ritchie, I just hope you didn’t get your feelings hurt too much for having been mispronounced. Because as far as I’m concerned, SANTORA 4-EVER!

(1) Supertramp does, in fact, fucking rule. As do the Buzzcocks.