On Being Pompous/On Being an Ass/On Being a Son-of-a-Bitch

My long time e-mail address has been PASOB@aol.com, and PASOB used to be emblazoned on my vanity license plate. As a word unfamiliar to everyone, specifically because it is not a word, but an acronym, I have often been asked, “What does it mean?” Being the good and honest boy that I am, I have always been happy to answer, “It stands for pompous ass son-of-a-bitch.” This information usually elicits a laugh, and often a, “That’s great! Good for you!” comment. Most also assume there is a story behind it—and, indeed, there is. 

In the late Seventies and early Eighties I became deeply involved in film animation, moving from being a presenter, publicist and promoter of the art form to a budding producer, working for Gary Kurtz’s Kinetographics film company. I had the good fortune to meet and/or trumpet and/or work with several generations of animators including Chuck Jones, Tex Avery, Olli Johnson, Frank Thomas, Ward Kimble, Bill Melendez, and the slightly younger Richard Williams, the masters at the time who gave me great insight into the art as it had been; to Brad Bird, Jerry Rees, John Musker, Eric Goldberg, Rob Minkoff, Roger Allers and John Lassiter of the then new generation, who inspired me with their energy and vision for the art as it could be. This put me in a wonderful position to learn of and admire animation’s past, and to become excited about animation’s future. This at a time when most people in the film industry didn’t think animation had a future, including some of the masters, who felt the type of glory days they had had would never return. Disney was in the doldrums, non-Disney features tended to be of the “Care Bears” variety, and I won’t even speak of most television animation of the time as I do not wish to risk nausea. It’s not hard to understand why people felt this way. I felt, though, having studied and thought about the aesthetics of the art form for a number of years, and spending long evenings with some of the new generation discussing what animation could become, both artistically and commercially, that having anything but a passionate belief in this art form and its future was to be mentally impaired. I wore that passionate belief not only on my sleeve—I had a complete suit of it. 

Also at this time I had a girlfriend who, in look, dress and manner, was very much like “Annie Hall.” As, like many urban men of my generation I suspect, I really wanted my own Annie Hall, I was quite pleased with this relationship. Unfortunately, she was one of those “most people” who thought animation was for children, a dead art form and a commercial dead-end, and not as important or cool as live action film. She just never understood my passion. “All your friends,” my Annie Hall gleefully told me at the conclusion of an argument on the matter, “think you are nothing but a pompous ass son-of-a-bitch.” After experiencing pique, anger and embarrassment over being accused of such an horrible character fault, and after I got myself home alone, I wrote a poem to her (never sent, but if she reads this blog, she’ll find it below) and decided that if I’m going to be accused of being a pompous ass son-of-a-bitch simply because I was deeply passionate about something, especially an art form, then I’ll take that—PASOB—as a badge of honor and wear it proudly. 

A rather treacherous, danger-fraught move, I think, but as I later wrote an article for the October 25th, 1983 issue of Daily Variety, which opened with this statement: 

The greatest challenge in commercial filmmaking today is to produce a full-length animated feature of quality and broad general appeal that generates substantial profits for its distribution company and its makers. It is a challenge few are willing to accept. For animation is considered a “loser” by most film executives in Hollywood and that usually ends the matter. Nonetheless, further and deeper consideration should be given to the potential for profits derived from animation. It might just be possible that for all these years animation has been a field rich in oil, but one never really worked, except by one famous wildcatter who made it pay off. As to the rest of Hollywood, they have seen fit to pave the field over and turn it into a parking lot. 

And ended with this statement: 

There’s absolutely nothing inherent in animation that dictates that it has to be a boxoffice failure. It is not a law of physics. Animation is an entertainment form that has had success stories to tell and, given the chance, has many more to tell. 

AND given the current healthy creative and commercial state of animation features, I think the last laugh would be mine—if I wasn’t too courteous of a chap to laugh it. 

The poem that I wrote but never delivered to my Annie Hall, was not so much an effort to put forward a non-stuttering defense—although it may come off that way—as it was me trying to understand a truth that my Annie Hall did accurately reveal: I am pompous. The deeper truth, though, is that so are you and every other conscious entity on this planet. We are all pompous. We are all pompous because each one of us considers himself or herself the center of the universe, whether we ever admit it or not. We all consider ourselves the center of the universe because our family, our friends, our community, our nation, this planet, and, indeed, the universe, all go about their lives and movements in a 360 degree expanding circle around us, and we sit, stand and sleep in the dead center of that circle. Pomposity is a simple matter of physics. 

I can hear the protests all ready. Some of you just won’t accept that you are pompous. Do you think, most of the time, that your opinions are correct? Then you are pompous. Do you like and take pleasure in such know-it-all, pompous fictional characters as Sherlock Holmes and his American descendent, Gregory House, MD? Then you are pompous. For to follow the exploits of such antisocial characters who can wither a conflicting opinion with just the perfect statement delivered with just the perfect spin of disdain over their opponent’s lack of intelligence, is to dream of speaking with their voices when we have opponents or opposing ideas to counter, instead of our own stuttering and sputtering, tongue-tied and twisted efforts. It is when we come up against opponents who, either because of well-thought out arguments or because they simply have the knack, can express themselves with confidence and no twisting of tongue or the spreading of saliva through sputtering despite them being wrong because we, of course, are right, it it with such people that we tend to add “ass” and “son-of-a-bitch” (or just “bitch,” depending on the gender) to the condemning appellation of pompous. 

We are all pompous. I do not see this, though, as a fault to be corrected as much as a fact to be dealt with. We should all just admit it, and then, for the good of our families, friends, communities, nations, this planet, and, indeed, the universe, try to rise above it without denying it. I think I’ll start PA—Pompous Anonymous. “Hi, I’m Steven and I’m pompous—but I’m trying to understand that and, much more important, understand that every one else is also, and so to have a little empathy, otherwise known as trying to understand the other guy, walk in his shoes for a while, try to see it from his perspective there at the center of the universe. I guess what I’m saying is—I’m just tying to make the circle that surrounds me less a barrier than something that can intersect with other people’s circles.” 

For the moment membership is free—but if this idea becomes hot, I’m charging! 

To satisfied any curiosity I may have aroused in any of you reading this, I will end with the poem of self-defense I wrote, dedicated, I suppose, to my Annie Hall. 

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YOU POMPOUS ASS SON-OF-A-BITCH 

 8-30-81 

“You pompous ass son-of-a-bitch.” 
You accuse me of being 
But my being has never denied it. 
“You pompous ass son-of-a-bitch,” 
You insist, 
As if by telling me you’ll change me, 
As if revelation will reform. 
But what have you revealed? 
What eyes have you opened? 
What deep soul shame do you 
Think you have spawned with 
Your little barren verbal sperm? 

You tell me nothing I do not know. 
You draw no curtains. 
You open no doors. 
You shed no light. 

What right? 
What claim to shame? 
What “Pity the poor boy, let’s improve his lot” 
(What rot!) 
Powers do you assume 
Are yours by some grace of DNA 
That compels you to impale me 
On some self-righteous lance? 

Look. 
Listen. 
Try to understand. 

That I am pompous is a 
Fact not a fault. 
I admit it, 
But I don’t submit it 
For your review. 
I suppose I respect you view, 
But not much. 
For it always looks out, never in. 
So I don’t have time for it, 
For I intend to win, 
So I have had to look in, 
And see and surmise and summarize 
And categorize and quantify 
And qualify and list and 
Label and like and despise 
And regret and revel in and 
Love and have to laugh, 
For I am such a silly god 
Damn ninny at times. 
But they are my times, 
Tick-tock, 
My sixty-seconds per minute, 
My sixty minutes per hour, 
My hours, my days, my weeks, 
My months, my years, my story, 
My life, my being, 
My self. 
My center. 
I do not need you to enter. 
So get, scoot, scat, 
There are no faults in my character, 
Only facts. 

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P.S. I can think of nothing more pompous than the writing of a poem or, for that matter, a blog.