Stubble Disobedience.

When Henry David Thoreau didn't feel like paying his taxes to protest the Mexican War, he was famously arrested and spent a night in jail. He live-tweeted this as the founding document of American civil disobedience, cleverly titled "Civil Disobedience." It influenced Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and any 1980s sitcom with a "very special episode" in which the kids learn about the '60s by protesting something and get arrested, as their once-hippie parents join in and/or have to explain wistfully at the end that somehow, things have changed.

I reference Gandhi, King, and the first two seasons of Family Ties not because I put myself in their tradition—that would involve going to jail 'n stuff and the closest I've come to being imprisoned is sitting through Meet Joe Black—but because somewhere, sometimes things get so stupid you can't help but not take a stand.

As of this writing, the government has been closed down for eleven days because the Speaker of the House (I won't use names) just really, really, reeeally doesn't like a three-year-old law.

By this point, the shutdown has evolved from cute snowday to stupid inconvenience to national embarrassment to international disgrace. The best part is, the Speaker (still not using names) and all of his party members have all but conceded they're done protesting the three-year-old law but still refuse to end the shutdown or give a reason why they won't. If they weren't already in politics, I'd say they have a future in politics.

Which brings me to myself. As a resident of Washington, D.C., I am disgraced at my government's inability to, well, govern. I decided I should make some sort of protest.

I thought about what I could do. I could go down and protest at the Capitol, but that would involve leaving my house, and with the Metro's funding on life-support, I'm not positive I could get back home. I could call my local federal representatives, only the District of Columbia doesn't have any. I could even go to the Mall the set myself aflame, but then all of the hipster protesters would be like, "It's been done."

Unclear of what to do, I consulted my usual spiritual leader in times of crisis: Father Mulcahy.

There's this episode of M*A*S*H where Hawkeye and BJ can't stand Charles playing his French horn, so they protest by refusing to shower until he stops playing. (Apparently this is one of those convenient gaps where a week goes by with no fighting or patients, which does help to explain how they stretched out a two-and-a-half year war for eleven seasons.) Banished from the mess tent for their odor, they invite Father Mulcahy to eat with them outside. He politely defers. BJ reminds him, "Jesus ate with the lepers." Mulcahy considers that for a moment and says, "He was an exceptionally good sport."

Considering my wife gets mad when I don't clip my toenails, I knew that not showering was out. But I had been putting off shaving for the first few days of the shutdown, and after remembering how Eddie Vedder grew a mohawk to protest Bush invading Iraq, I realized that I could register my protest by refusing to shave. I'd call it "No Shave-Down 'til There's No Shut-Down."

This is the kind of thing that begs for social media documentation, but that would require taking "selfies," which I generally protest more than the government shutting down. So after testing the water with a Facebook post, I decided to follow it up with this, since I wanted to write about the shutdown in some way or another.

Thus, my facial hair is both a protest and a documentation of the time spent with no government. If things keep going how they're going, I could eventually start a ZZ Top tribute band (called AA Bottom, 'natch).

Besides, cool people have beards. Like our first president to have facial hair, Abraham Lincoln. And he was a trendsetter in more ways than one: After him, every president following had facial hair with the exception of Andrew Johnson (who was impeached) and William McKinley (who was shot), until Woodrow Wilson (who was, um, stroked?). Since Wilson, there's been nary a chief executive whisker since. Wait. Does that make Wilson the most influential president since Lincoln? I think I just blew my mind.

But I digress, mainly because Lincoln's on everyone's mind nowadays. "Today there is a New Confederacy," announced a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, "an insurgent political force that has captured the Republican party and . . . has accomplished what its predecessor could not: It has shut down the federal government, and without even firing a weapon or taking 620,000 lives, as did the Old Confederacy's instigated Civil War."

But if anyone's starting a Civil War, it's the Republicans on themselves. I'm half expecting the Tea Party to fire upon whatever is the equivalent of the "mainstream" (ha!) Republicans' Fort Sumter (the Bush family ranch? The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library? The Barry Goldwater Whatever He Has?). The Post op-ed was likely responding to an unnamed GOP Rep who compared the shutdown to Gettysburg—with the Republicans as the Confederates. I understand if you like the idea of still calling yourself "Lincoln's Party," but at this point, you either look like you're stupid or you don't care (not that those two are necessarily mutually exclusive).

And with George Will comparing Obamacare to the Fugitive Slave Act, it doesn't look like it's gonna end anytime soon. Oops, said I wouldn't name names. Well, George Will is a jackass.

At any rate, it's allowed me to tweet my favorite analogy:

The #GOP blaming #Obama for the shutdown is like John Wilkes Booth blaming Lincoln for missing the end of the play. #GOPShutdown #p2
— Eric Wolfson (@ericwolfson) October 10, 2013

Thoreau put it this way: "If the tax-gatherer, or any other public officer, asks me, as one has done, 'But what shall I do?' my answer is, 'If you really wish to do anything, resign your office.' When the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has left his office, then the revolution is accomplished. But even suppose blood should flow. Is there not a sort of blood shed when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a man's real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death. I see this blood flowing now."

Thoreau's words are like finding a snippet Quentin Tarantino dialog in the middle of Walden. They also predict the Civil War by about two decades, not to mention Lincoln's masterpiece, his Second Inaugural Address.

But even if the Confederacy was never able to shutdown the government, I would like to note that this last Congress has passed the fewest amount of bills of any Congress since 1861—which arguably makes it the most divided government since the Civil War.

Thus, in the spirit of Thoreau, I would like to take his words—"Resign your office"—and say them to the Speaker.

Because, at the end of the day, it's my God-given right as a freedom-loving American to do something that great Americans have done now for generations: Shave.

The Oscars: A Month Late & A Lincoln Short.

There are two types of motion pictures: Films & Movies. Films are art made for the ages; Movies are summer diversions made for the popcorn. Thus, The Greatest Film Ever Made is Citizen Kane, while The Greatest Movie Ever Made is King Kong. (Note to self: Make a motion picture named Kane Kong just to watch my own head explode.) Just as the history of Western Civilization is wrought with the human species being torn between extremes—the fine literature & the dimestore pulp; the fine art & the dirty pictures; the church organ & the bawdyhouse piano—so too is the motion picture industry. (Is there any other reason why the Criterion Collection includes The Seventh Seal & The Blob?!)

Enter the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences & their Oscars, a so-called yardstick to represent greatness. But of course, an Academy is only as good as its members, & if there's anyplace in the world torn between high art & low living, it's Los Angeles.

Such was the case for this last round of Oscars. As I wrote in my 2012 year-end wrap-up, the Greatest Movie of the Year was Argo, but the Greatest Film of the Year was Lincoln. But then, just like the Bystander Effect that killed Kitty Genovese (or the that Simpsons episode where Bart loses class president because everyone in the class assumed that everyone  would vote for him), Ben Affleck was not nominated for Best Director for Argo. For the next month straight, it was his ticket to winning Best Director at every other awards show, which then would give Argo Best Picture as a sort of icing on the cake.

Now, clearly the Academy screwed up here. Ben Affleck should've been nominated for Best Director, & had he been, the smart money would've been on him & he would've deserved it to. But Argo as Best Picture?! Nope, sorry. Shoulda never happened.

Making a great Movie is almost as difficult as making a great Film, but at the end of the day, it's almost always the Film that should win out. The clearest recent case of this is in 1998 when Shakespeare in Love beat out Saving Private Ryan for Best Picture. Ten years on, when AFI did its 100 Years...100 Movies: 10th Anniversary list, Saving Private Ryan debuted at #71 while Shakespeare in Love was nowhere to be found.

Now don't get me wrong. There are definitely rare times when a Movie should beat out a Film. It would've been awesome if Raiders of the Lost Ark had beaten Chariots of Fire & an argument can definitely be made for Star Wars beating out Annie Hall (& I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Annie Hall, but an argument can be made nonetheless). I dated a girl whose mom refused to watch Gandhi simply because it had beaten out E.T. We all have our limits.

Muddying the water are Films that seem like Movies & Movies that seem like Films. This is the case when Brokeback Mountain—a Film's Film if there ever was one (at least in our postmodern vernacular), it was somehow beaten by Crash, a stupid Movie masquerading as a serious Film. I'll also always hold that Titanic is a Movie with all of the trappings of a Film, although in this case, it was the rare Movie worthy of winning Best Picture, although I'll always find it more ridiculous than gut-wrenching. Sometimes a Film beats a Film, true—think Citizen Kane's infamous loss to How Green Was My Valley—but often the most exciting (& controversial) races pit a Film against a Movie.

Which brings us back to this past year. Now, had Affleck been nominated for Best Director, he would've won & then Lincoln would've gotten Best Picture. But instead, Affleck was able to ride his snub all the way to the final award, leaving the vastly superior Lincoln without a crown.

Because if I was a betting man, I'd bet that when the AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies: 20th Anniversary list comes out in 2017, Argo will be nowhere in sight.

& Lincoln will be somewhere around #71.

The Best of 2012.

"Go ahead, make my chair."

Much to the Mayans' chagrin, the world moves on from 2012 to 2013.

Here were the things that made it worth living through:

Best Film: Lincoln.

What happens when the greatest living director teams up with the greatest living actor to tell the story of America's greatest-ever president? Something close to perfection. By focusing in on Lincoln's struggle to get the 13th Amendment passed over a precious few weeks, Lincoln tells the story of an entire man's life & the modern nation he helped bring into being. The lines blur between history, drama, comedy, & tragedy in a way that few films have been able to achieve. & at the center of it all is Lincoln, who plots, plans, theorizes, schemes, schmoozes, & charms his actions into a singular gesture of political genius.

Best Movie: Argo.

Films aside, it's been a great year for movies—The Avengers, The Hunger Games, & Dark Knight Rises all somehow lived up to their hype & more, but for me, Argo stood above the rest as a testament to great movie-making. It probably has to do with the fact that, at its center, Argo is a love-letter to the movie industry. In spinning an essentially-true tall-tale about a government agent who frees a group of Americans in Iran by posing them as a film-crew scouting a sci-fi B-movie, actor/director Ben Affleck never lets up as he takes you along for the ride—& near-failures—of his elaborate sting operation. Many critics have noted that the movie also sets up the modern Middle Eastern world, but would anyone care if it wasn't super-fun to watch? As the man said, Argo f_ck yerself.

Best Television Show: Community.

2012 has been a renaissance year for the art form known as the sitcom. Parks & Recreation is the most charming, New Girl is the most improved, Happy Endings is the most consistent, but Community is most progressive, which for me is why it takes the cake. Not since Seinfeld has a mainstream sitcom pushed the boundaries as much as Community, & its 2011-2012 third season was its weirdest & most wonderful yet. Each episode was often little more than a shell for a 22-minute experiment: One episode was a spot-on send-up of Law & Order, another had the characters breaking out into song Glee-style, & yet another took place entirely inside a video game designed in the 1980s. But standing above them all was "Remedial Chaos Theory," in which the episode reveals 7 different alternate realities unfolding depending on who answers the door to get a pizza. Yeah, like everything else in Community's self-referential little world, it has to be seen to be understood, but once yer in, you are in.

Best Song: "We Are Never Getting Back Together" by Taylor Swift.

Every once in a while, an instant anthem comes out that captures the imagination by knocking down walls simply by existing. Here we have a country star-turned-pop diva, embracing her stardom with a knowing wink to the hipsters who she'll never be cool enough for, & beating/joining them with a sound, look, & video that sounds like it was masterminded by Wes Anderson's kid brother. The video is the stunner—a rare one-shot masterpiece (check my list of the best ones here)—walking the line between sleek pop & cool rock in a wholly stylish & stylized way. Oh yeah, & the fact that it was sinking into the national consciousness right around the time when Mitt Romney was breaking up with the Republican Party didn't hurt.

Best Book: Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, by Jon Meacham.

Disclosure: I have not read this book. But it's about Thomas Jefferson & by Jon Meacham, so what's not to love? Plus, it's got "Art" in the title. Love it already. All I need to do is finish my copy of Goodwin's Team of Rivals & then read Chernow's Washington: A Life (which has been on deck fer a year now—if only I could read as fast as I could spout Elvis fun facts!), & then I'll go out & buy my copy. & then read it. But aside from that minor detail, this book is phenomenal.

Best Stage Performance: Death of a Salesman, with Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Disclosure #2: I did not see this play. But I have a good friend who saw it & said it was great. I think this is the greatest play in American history, so I know I woulda loved it. Plus, it had the creepy cult dude from The Master & Spiderman from Spiderman, both of which I did see this year. The Master was pretty f_cked up, but Hoffman is compelling as always, & Spiderman was great, although truth be told I could watch a movie featuring Emma Stone reading a phonebook & I'd probably be just as contented. Now how can we get Emma Stone into a production of Death of a Salesman...?

Best Game: Angry Birds.

There are two types of people in the world: People who are addicted to Angry Birds & people who've never tried playing it. Cuz once you start, you can't stop—it's SOOO much better than thinking.

Best Website: Twitter.

"Hey there newspapers, TV, & radio punditry! Sorry I took all yer jobs! I am all-powerful! I'd write more, but I only have 140 characters!"

Best Reissue: Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968.

What's the most influential rock album that had never before been available as a stand-alone CD? Nuggets. Masterminded by Lenny Kaye (guitarist & leader of the Patti Smith Group), this was a collection of garage rock that took the music just to the cusp of punk, yes, but it was also a freakshow of hits, misses, & rarities culled from the cutout bins of rock & roll—a fuzz-tone medicine show put on by all of the losers, fakers, wanna-be's, one-hit wonders, & no-hit wonders that took the chance at 15 seconds of fame in the spotlight. Despite making every definitive Rolling Stone list from the '80s onward, the album was nowhere to be found until Rhino reissued it as the first disc of a four-disc boxed set in the mid-'90s. Now for the first time, you can get it just by itself, & bask in a weird, weird underworld of '60s rock that wouldn't be caught dead on a Time-Life informercial.

Best Performance Art Piece: Clint Eastwood's RNC Speech.

Q: What do you get when you cross a grizzled actor, a national convention, & a chair?

A: Art. (You also get history—never before had the nominee of a national convention been upstaged...by an empty chair.)