Louisa NECIB

Oh dear,

Michael got a serious hair up his ass.  This is a post response to a Libertarian friend.  I am so fucking tired of these half-assed excuses, that Dems and the GOP are not different.  That the GOP and Libertarians are different.  It is a fucking joke.  I will spell it out:  The GOP (and Libertarians) want to abolish the minimum wage.  They (both of them) would rather not see any restriction on banking, business practice, or Wall Street, period.  They (both of them) want to banish Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.  They (both of them) would like to abolish the Department of Education.  They (both of them) are virulently anti-choice and are drooling at the prospect of prosecuting pregnant women that are even considering abortion.  They (both of them) are super-excited about executing citizens, regardless of the evidence provided.  (i.e. Motherfucking Texas, where they do not give a rats' ass aboot the facts.  See Illinois, or The Thin Blue Line.)  That they (both of them, GOP and Libertarian) would love to live in a Belle Epoque world where kids worked for free, and did what they were told, and no motherfucking Government institution, or Union told them that kids could not work more than six hours.  That men, working in the coal mines in West Virginia deserved a fucking coffee break.

Hey, motherfucking, Libertarian chums, that want to abolish the unions, want tort reform, want no restrictions on bidness? Who is paying for the bridges you cross? Who is paying for  the Medicare benefit that was tapped out because your Libertarian/GOP Overlord (funded by the US Chamber of Commerce [your best buddies!]  fuckers installed damage caps? What will you assholes do when it is your turn to be fucked by the system? And you voted for tax cuts (again, sigh.)  I am sick to death of hearing aboot the difference between Dems and the GOP.  It is fucking displayed every single day in the decisions of the United States Supreme Court.  


We, the good guys, have lost.  The moneyed interests have won.  They are already hacking at Medicare.  And the asshole below, Ryan, has won the battle.  Despite the Teabagging votive that, "They are protecting the livelihood of their children," it is quite plain that they are raping their children to fill the coffers of those of us already v wealthy.  


We are, quite obviously, in a period not unlike that of the late 19th Century.  A period full of Union Busters, pro-business, the "Market Rules All", fuck regulations, serious bidness folks, that will share all the wealth w/ only the wealthiest of our citizens.  The rest of us can frankly, go to fucking hell.  


Where the fuck is FDR when we need him now?


Go to hell, you slick merchants of trickle down that ne'er does.

Go to hell, those that propose that Social Security deserves reform because you hate it so much, you fucking Hoover Republicans.

Go to hell, you assholes that beg for tort reform, yet call their lawyer the minute something hurts you or your family.

Go to hell, you dicks that cry bloody murder about massive government money, yet never acknowledge the help you have gotten.

Go to hell, all of you, you motherfucking secessionist assholes that would rather see your state and this country fail before help the black dude in the White House.




As my friend, Ted Fero says, "It's your karma."

You slick, Motherfucker, want to make all of us pay, so the Koch Bros can play croquet w/ their daughters.

And exactly how does the Libertarian Party differ from the GOP, ergo the Dems? Your standard bearer for the Libertarians, Ron Paul is anti-choice, would not have voted for the Civil Rights Act of the 60s, believes in absolutely no regulations or restrictions on "bidness", wants to abolish Medicare & Medicaid, AND Social Security.  These are all (silent) wishes of the GOP, your Libertarian Overlords.  The Dems do not want to do ANY of those things.  The Dems (and Unions) are the ones that brought you the fucking minimum wage (which Teabagging Legend Bachmann wants to abolish) and the forty hour work week and are against Tort Reform in all its' infamy.  There is a frickin' difference, damnitt.  I'm a frickin Social-Democratic, anarchist-leaning Lefty who sees that the Right has gone SO FAR, and been so co-opted by Big Bidness, as to reveal suddenly that the GOP are rejecting (albeit idiotic) payroll tax cuts.  Ron and Rand Paul are just the same as the GOP assholes that fund them and helped them get elected.  What is yor solution, Ted? You gonna vote for the Teabagging Christian GOP candidate or a Libertarian candidate like Paul, who is as messed up as I described above, not even a REAL Libertarian cause he's PRO-LIFE.  These yahoos in the Libertarian party are a sham.  It is easy to rail against war as a minority in the GOP, cause no one LISTENS to you! And Ron Paul is running as a mo-fo GOP Republican, not a Libertarian.  They are gutless stooges for the Chamber of Commerce.  Gosh, sounds like thje GOP!  What do you do for the working class? I get pissed at Obama, for sure.  I want us OUT of all our engagements.  10,000 soldiers are coming home next month.  Were you on the barricades like I was in 2003, stopping traffic on the Bay Bridge? What exactly were you doing as Bush 2 rolled up the deficit? Where was all this CONCERN, then? There is a frickin difference.  Did you know that it almost impossible to get an abortion (LAW OF THE LAND!) in Kansas now?  That the frickin courts stopped a legislative Planned Parenthood destruction in Indiana? I am about as left as you can get.  And I have used the whole, "They're all the same," canard a ton.  But only as a joke at parties.  There is a massive difference.  And if you believe the Paul Boys are any different, you are wrong.

Here are the fabulous

Jazz Butcher Conspiracy very hard at work:  In Munchen.





(Why do rock stars chew gum at the mic? Even those that are most prob v plied w/ drink?)










Lennon chewed gum in the Beatlemania days when he weren't drunk nor stoned, at all.  He were just scared.  Perhaps, one of the tests of truly great art:  Those that are the real Titans must feel the most pain and insecurity to achieve those Halcyon Heights.

I like the new White Denim

"Right! We're screwed.  Let's get a drink.  Mine's a whiskey."

Record, a lot.  I really do, but I still have not lived inside it yet.

The problem is that I bought another record that same day and I put them both on the same playlist that I use for my (walking) commute.  Also, I put the other record first on that playlist.  The two records are v different in style but I love that first record so much that I have not been able to give White Denim their due.

The other record is Max Eider's latest, actually released in Winter of 2010, called Disaffection.  Max Eider used to be Pat Fish's guitarist for The Jazz Butcher Conspiracy.  (David J of Bauhaus and Love and Rockets played bass.)  Max and Pat had an infamous drunken fight in  Zurich (how Rock and Roll!) and Max quit the group.  Max did a fab solo record in the 80s, the splendidly titled, The Best Kisser in the World, and then promptly vanished for a while.

Max and Pat eventually kissed and made up and even occasionally play shows together.  I saw them w/ a friend at the Great American Music Hall in The City in the late 90s.  Great show.  They even did a new Jazz Butcher record together, called Rotten Soul, that was good but not as good as those old 80s records.

Anyhoo, Disaffection is a real tour de force for Mr Eider.  It is a gold mine for caustic couplets and lovely guitar playing.  Eider is a lounge-y jazz player by trade and spectacular at it.  (Pat Fish and the JBC always had fantastic lead guitar playing, even if of varying styles.)  The songs he writes are of the same lounge-y style, but lyrically Eider goes against the grain, writing mean, misanthropic songs that constantly surprise the listener.  (Steely Dan plowed this same field excellently themselves.)  


One of my fave Eider lyrics is from his Jazz Butcher days in his song, Who Loves You Now.  The music is like you might hear at a fern bar or Nordstrom's and then Eider unleashes this lyric at you:  "Who'll be with you/As you hemorrhage, stagger, and die."  I mean, who the fuck uses the word hemorrhage in a great pop song? 


Another juicy couplet is from The Best Kisser in the World, "Jesus, friend of the poor/What do you take me for?"  


Disaffection is chock full of nasty, wonderful lyrics.  The major drama of the record is Man v Nature (like Other Lives' latest, Tamer Animals.)  And Eider is most definitely like Hamlet, "Man delights not me.  No, nor women, neither, ... " 


Here are some more "dusky jewels" (eff you, Jimbo) from Maximilian Eider:


"So thanks, you sneering bigot/Patsy won't be seen again" From Nice Guy, a song about a white bigot who spoiled Max's great day at a beautiful nature scene.  


"Well I hope she dies/In a place like this/Terrified/And soaked in piss" From East End Boy, sounds like a song about his Dad.  And himself.  


"So this is evolution/We make tools and tools make us strong/We're self-conscious and we talk/And on two legs we walk/What could possibly go wrong?" From Evolution, a song about how small this human race really is.


"She's gorgeous/But she's not pretty/Dripping with red/From tooth and from claw" From Tooth and Claw.  This is absolute beautiful poetry about Mother Nature.  The drop dead gorgeous ruler of us all that is so unforgiving and ugly, no matter what you do.  But especially nasty if you fuck w/ her.  She has no pretty ways then, for sure.


"We know from George Harrison/That all things must pass/And one day some sainted publican/May refill your empty glass/You might even take a break/From sitting on your arse/Drowning in self-pity/Smoking too much grass" From The Black Dog, a song about dealing w/ depression.


"And thank God, we caucasians/Can look on with some pride/We could teach those boys a thing or two/About force and genocide" From Those Who Work Together, a song about the Rwandan genocide, but also about the notion of "The banality of evil."  The notion that it is, My neighbor who commits these atrocities, not myself.  


"There's a hole in the middle/Of everything/They say you can't fill it with liquor/But let's try" From Dancing with Andromeda.  Eider is a first class drunk in all the best senses of that awful phrase.  His biggest "hit" w/ the Jazz Butcher Conspiracy was a song called Drink.  Plus, this is near the end of the album (and this has all been told to you as you would experience it yourself on the record.)  


I cannot get enough of Disaffection.  It rules my life these daies.  It is the work of an old forgotten master, an album that challenges the listener, yet puts them in a place so comfortable as to open said listener's mind, and let them soak up the Ugly Fucking Truths.  A spoonful of sugar, if you will.  


Thank you, fucking, Max Eider.  And thank you, Pat Fish, too.

"If it weren't for heavy drinking/We'd never play Sweet Jane"




Do not worry, White Denim.  You will get your turn.

I know I have already posted it.  I am going to post it fucking again!

This video is great because you see his wedding ring (he does not totally hate life!) and all his great finger work on the guitar (hollow-bodied Gretsch).  Plus, I just like his boring, matter-of-fact stylee.  Not big w/ Rawk Stars.










(I think I might post the JBC Death Dentist video, too; on another post, shortly.  That is a re-post, too, but it gives you a great idea of what Eider was like in the JBC, in a rawk setting.)



I love you all.  Kisses, ...



Ardent Fucking Henry

That video of Manhattan

That I posted a few days ago has started me thinking.  Why has this nation fallen for the notion of the "Real America" as a rural, agrarian; small, one stoplight, farming community?

The City at night.

Nixon's Southern Strategy is now so embedded in to the psyche of the Right Wing of this country that it is used by nearly every politician of the Right (and some Left) and is endlessly repeated ad nauseam by Fox News and Conservative (moderate, my ass) pundits like Applebee's Salad Bar David Brooks.

I always thought that it was the Great Cities of nations and empires that made them so important and special and prosperous.

And in the case of the United States, it is the Coastal states with the largest cities that actually provide more to the commonweal of our modern nation today.  The "fly over"/Southern states are the ones that actually take in more from the government than they contribute (despite recently being whipped in to a teabagging fury that they would rather not be helped by the government, at all.  Which is insane.)

Hell, remember, even the Situationists had no problems with Great Cities, per se.  They had problems with the way the Capitalistic Work/Leisure society had forced the cities to be built:  That they were divided in to sections, those designed strictly for work, and those designed strictly for leisure.  A park is fine, but why was not the whole city a park? "Beneath the paving stones, the beach!" They created the term psychogeography which referred to the very limited personal "geography" of typical Work/Leisure citizens, i.e. your commute.  The Situationists objected to the fact that the Great Cities were not being explored and utilized in different ways, that the Great Cities belonged to all its citizens and should never be closed off to anyone for any reason at any time.

This notion that our Great Cities are bad or evil or not part of the Real America is very dangerous.

Exactly when

Did we change the way we pronounce the word lingerie here in the United States? We used to pronounce it like the totally brill Scottish band, Belle and Sebastian, do, rhyming it with luxury.

Now we pronounce it rhyming with Tanqueray (Gin).

So beautiful.

There is hope.

Enjoy.

Serious h/t to d r i f t g l a s s and his blog who turned me on to this today.

Love you all.

Poor Renee,

Though, she knows exactly what she has signed up for; and she just recently made a lifetime subscription to the Michael Times-Herald, anyway, so there is that.

"He was precocious as a child and childish as an adult."  That is a quote from Roger Lewis' excellent biography of Peter Sellers but it pretty much sums me up in the proverbial nutshell, as well.

As a very young child, I much preferred hanging out with my parents and my parents' friends much more than kids my own age.  I do not wanta get too heavy here or too drug-store psychological (ultimately, this is supposed to be a long tribute to one of my heroes, James Garner) but I figure a lot of that wanting to play with the adults rather than sit at the Kids Table had to do with the Child Actor phase of my life.  I wanted all Mum's friends to see how fucking clever I was, show off.  Donna, my Mum, made damn sure I was going to be reading at a very early age and that I would be reading a lot, all the time.  And I was.  And I still do.  I also have been blessed with an excellent memory.  It was natural that I would take up acting at an early age as a result.  I was ahead of the other kids in my age group and my small stature (though a nightmare in class or on the ball fields) actually worked to my significant advantage in the "adult" world of Acting.  Or at least it did until I went to college.  On one hand you could say, if I wanted to seriously "make it" as an actor I should have skipped college, moved to LA, and signed up with an agency.  My tiny stature and "type" would be best for television, ideally, or perhaps movies.  In the alternate Michael is an Actor Universe I would probably have a career like Johnny Galecki, say.  Or, if I had really been dedicated, Michael J Fox.

But, speaking of dedication, and here is where the second half of that quote enters our story, if I was not dedicated enough to do homework in high school (I much preferred listening to prog rock, writing terrible poetry, and mooning over girls, reading, etc, ... ) or even attend college classes how on earth was I going to be dedicated enough to make it as an actor in LA, on my own, as an adult, with no help from my folks? And we all know the old maxim about how hard it is to make it as an actor.  Well, it is not bullshit.  It is true.  Watch the first half of Tootsie again, or, a better film, All That Jazz, even though that is more about dancers, anyhoo, you should get the point, ... 

I was a terrible Adult, at first.  An absolute mess.  Most of you folks reading this are fully aware of my faults and problems as an Adult.  Basically, I was a Prodigy and a Late Bloomer (as I figure most Child Actors are.)

I still have my problems:  I am terrible with money and I drink too much but emotionally I am truly, finally an adult.  I am much more in touch with my feelings and do not tend towards self-destruction anymore.  I have respect for myself (Renee had a lot to do with that) now and am comfortable in my skin.  I do not allow myself to be pushed around or "victimized" like I used to.  I do not lie or steal anymore.  I am much more sensitive to the plight of others.  I still spout off opinions, sometimes aggressively (oftentimes off-topic, too) but I have gotten waaaay better regarding that and can recognize myself in folks younger than me now.  (It is something I have to work on every day.)  I am kind and generous to folks.  And what is it they say in Metropolitan? "The big thing is how you respond to the question, 'What do you do for a living?' I can't bear it." I am not bitter about not being an actor or a Rock Star.  And I love my job.  I have no problems with that question.

The turning point for me was a break-up I had with an old girlfriend, a little counseling, my new job in Walnut Creek, and most most most important:  getting together with Renee.  I was thirty-four.

************

Love that jacket

Things James Garner and I have in common:

We share the same birth date:  April 7.  Garner was born in 1928.  I was born in 1968.

Garner (his actual birth name is Bumgarner) was born in Norman, OK, a town I grew up in that was crucial to my formative years.

Garner, of course, is a massive television star and actor, a profession that I once aspired to.  Garner was not a Child Actor, though.

We are both massive fans of Oklahoma Sooner football, like many Oklahomans, natch.  The University of Oklahoma is in Norman and I used to live right across the street from the stadium. We used to sell parking "spaces" in our front yard on game days.

Garner, like myself, and my parents, are members of a different sort of vanishing Tribe of the Oklahoma Plains:  The Oklahoma Liberal.  (Garner met his first and only wife at an Adlai Stevenson rally.)

See the resemblance?

We are both insanely handsome.  (jk)

************

But, back to the Poor Renee header of this post.  One thing about my Child Actor/Prodigy days has stuck with me all my life.  I do not live happily within my specific demographic, especially now.  The one exception to this rule would be music from about 1984 (I discovered R.E.M.) to about 2002 when Mary Hansen from Stereolab was killed by a lorry driver.  Before 1984 I listened to music from the Sixties and early '70s.  (Beatles/prog)  And since 2002 I listen to mostly music from the Sixties again (Beatles/Stax) or Hot Club of Cowtown who play "standards" or Bob Wills.  Even older!


Regarding films, I cannot tell you how many times I have dragged Renee to the local Art House  cinema, "full" of people in their fifties, sixties, or older.  (Woody Allen movies, documentaries, films like Jane Eyre, Of Gods and Men, etc, ... ) She was twenty-three when we first started dating.

Here are some other Old Folks things I like to do:

I still read newspapers!  Shocking! (I read the the SFChron and its fabulous Datebook section [love you, Jon Carroll] but I still miss Ray Ratto from the Sporting Green; and the NYT.)

My favorite music magazine is Mojo, which is pretty much about old, classic rock stars and cult figures.

I read The Atlantic regularly.  (Just bought the latest issue yesterday.)

(The biggest advertiser for the American magazines I buy? Bose.)

I watch a lot of Cable News.  


I watch PBS.  (New Masterpiece Mystery starts tomorrow! Poirot.)

I am insane for documentaries of all sorts but especially political ones.  I have even created a sort of day for them around here, called Documentary Mondays, which even my friend Nick C honors.  (That Bobby Fischer doc on HBO was great.  If they ever made a movie about him Christopher Eccleston should play Fischer.)

My favorite film directors are Lubitsch, Renoir, Melville,  Murnau, Wilder, Hawks, Welles, etc, ... all of them extremely dead.

Likewise, my Holy Trinity of Movie Stars:  Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, and Ingrid Bergman are no longer with us, either.

I love pre-Code cinema, Musicals, and foreign films.


I love TCM.  I even like their Silent Sundays.

I devour non-fiction and "lists" books and am cultish about good reference books.

I did not get a computer until the late aughts.

I vote in every election, no matter how small.

I am a hopeless and helpless political junkie.

I love eating in diners and cafeterias.

Okay, that last one was a joke.  You get the idea.

But, lately, it has gotten even worse for Poor Renee.  (Though, I expect, this will be just a phase.  At least, I hope so.)  I have discovered two local cable channels that show nothing but old time teevee shows and I am hooked, hard.

(Here are the big advertisers for these programs on those networks:  The Chef Basket, Rascal Scooters, oxygen tanks, reverse mortgages, class-action notices for mesothelioma, saving yourself from back taxes, etc, ... Poor Renee.  She married an old man.)

I am currently dvr-ing (five days a week):  The Big Valley (the last two Big Valleys have been amazing and I will totally do a post about them), The Dick Van Dyke Show (which Renee actually likes a little bit), Perry Mason, and The Rockford Files.

************

Thanks for your patience because we are finally bringing this monster home.

Damnitt, the Rockford Files is such a good show, even watching it today.  Sometimes the plots are formulaic but Garner was just such a good television actor that you get the feeling he could have been reading the phone book and folks still would have watched.

The little bits of comedy in his gestures and line readings.  The way he seems to be "winking" at his audience in a completely non-condescending way, making the audience feel in on the joke that television and celebrity are not all that important, and can be fun; that they, the audience, could be up there in The Rockford Files, having a blast on the set, and feel like part of the family.

I love the way he used the same actors over and over again in completely different roles, like they were a theatre company.  I love the fact that Rockford had done time (fully pardoned, though!), bounced checks, lived in a trailer on the beach, yet knew his Claret from his Beaujolais (but would prefer a can of Bud).

I admire and am impressed how close Garner, Juanita Bartlett, Cannell, and the other folks responsible for the creation of the show, got The Rockford Files to the seminal LA detective fiction of the early to mid twentieth century.  The Rockford Files was not noir by any stretch of the imagination, but that is not what they were aiming for.  They wanted to make folks laugh, too.  And they did great at capturing the shabbiness and cynicism of those memorable anti-hero detectives like Marlowe.

I always thought she was the prettiest woman on the show.

I love that Garner did nearly all his own driving in the series.  I love (but felt bad for him personally) his limp.  I love that he had a young, smart, very attractive woman lawyer throughout the series.  I love Angel.  I love Rocky.

James Garner had a decent film career.  (I still have not seen The Americanization of Emily, yet, a Paddy Chayefsky script.)  He was even nominated for Best Actor once in the 80s.  But he might just be the greatest television actor we will ever see.  No one on television fit more comfortably in folks living rooms than Garner did.  And to do that with such grace and humility and sense of humor is really special.

So even when I have stopped watching The Big Valley, Dick Van Dyke, Perry Mason, and the phase officially ends, I will still go on watching The Rockford Files.

James Garner is an awesome Oklahoman and a very good man.  Makes me proud to be born in Tulsa.

It is near time to saying

She was a fantastic foil for Phil Hartman

Goodbye to Treme for at least a year.  HBO signed on for a third year but the ratings have not been very good, despite the excellent Game of Thrones lead-in.

Still, I expect that David Simon's cache should be enough to let him see his way to a proper conclusion of the series.  At least, I hope so.

The second season has been better than the first and I think hit its peak about halfway through.  It stalled a little bit then unloaded an absolute Masterpiece Mardi Gras episode and has then been getting just a tad bit gushy and sentimental in the last couple of episodes regarding two arcs in the same family.

I would like to throw out some heavy props to two of the actresses in the series:  Foul mouthed Oscar winner, Melissa Leo keeps showing the world what an amazing talent she is and Khandi Alexander, who has been severely under-appreciated her whole career, are both absolute joys to live with every week.

The Back of Town blog and Dave Walker's Treme Explained are absolute essentials for cultists.

(Speaking of Technicolor, ... )

This was Ms Bergman's 1938 Technicolor test for Intermezzo.  She was twenty-three.  My goodness! And then they shot Intermezzo in black and white?!

Everyone have a fantastic, splendorous Friday! Renee and I have a great date planned for tomorrow:  We see The Trip at the Albany Twin and have dinner at Nizza la Bella.

Ciao, kisses, ... 

Had another one of those

I guess fur rugs were de rigueur in 1930s Hollywood, even outdoors.

"I know I know" movie moments last week:  TCM had a fab Carole Lombard double feature last week; Twentieth Century and Nothing Sacred.  I had not seen either of these films (I know I know.  See how that works?)

Twentieth Century is a rollicking, rolling screwball comedy set on (train) wheels, directed by American master Howard Hawks, starring Ms Lombard and John Barrymore with fantastic supporting work from Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns, and Etienne Giradot (what a fantastic name!) who reprised his role from the Broadway play this film was based on.  The absolute cracking script was written by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, based on their Broadway play of the same name.  And like a lot of great plays (and unlike most films) the script is not afraid to give a lot of the best gags to supporting players.  (Apparently Preston Sturges was first to work on the film script but was not getting it done and was sacked.  Still, it resembles a Sturges script in places, so, I am assuming some of his stuff was left in, and, anyhoo, the experience stayed with Sturges because Twentieth Century is an obvious influence for The Palm Beach Story.)

Barrymore, who I have never really liked in the past, is delicious here.  Finally Barrymore is allowed to put his over-the-top, stagey acting style to excellent use; the Ham is splendid and spot-on.  And Hawks fought hard for a reluctant studio to hire Lombard but still had to get Lombard mad to get the performance from her that the picture required.

The second film, Nothing Sacred, has an incredibly dopey premise that no one seems to sell very hard and, I am sorry, but Fredric March just does not do much for me in anything I have seen him in.  I think the ending of the film is brilliant on paper but William Wellman, the director, and his players just do not seem to make it work.  Nothing Sacred was the first comedy to use Technicolor's new Tri-Strip process but even that seems washed out, artificial, and lacking verve.  It was only a year later that Technicolor really came in to its own with The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and, of course, Gone with the Wind in 1939.  Oscar Levant did the score for the film, basically as a tribute to his recently deceased friend, George Gershwin.















(And, by the way, ... Erm, how should I put this? Twentieth Century was a pre-Code film, shot and released in 1934.  In Ms Lombard's first scene on the train she is wearing a white sheer cashmere turtle-neck sweater and no brassiere.  What is it they say on Seinfeld? They're real and they're spectacular.)

Dan Savage at Rhodes - When Will CNN & MSNBC Stop Giving Air Time to Ant...

Mitch Moreland

Our lone (star) bright spot in the last World Serious

Is the only Ranger who showed up in the World Serious last year and he is by far my fave Ranger right now.  No one is expecting too much of him but I think he could be the lefty Kevin Youkilis.

Anyhoo, he hit a massive home run two nights ago, and then last night he did this.

The Rangers survived the worst part of their schedule, twenty games in twenty-one days, seventeen of those on the road against the Damn Yankees, Cleveland, the resurgent Twins (and we never win at Target Field), and the Braves by going 10-10.  I'll take it.  Especially since now we get to beat up on the woeful Astros.

Aztec Camera - Jump (Loaded Version) [Van Halen cover]

The Perfect Disaster - Bluebell

Perahia plays Chopin - Preludes, Op. 28: Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 [Part ...

In times like these,

When the GOP seem to have hoodwinked the "liberal Lamestream media" that programs like Medicaid/Medicare and Social Security are all going bankrupt, and are desperate for ree-form, i.e. abolishment, sitting down with your friends and loved ones and watching Make Way for Tomorrow makes absolute perfect sense.

The director, Leo McCarey (no liberal, he- more a true conservative Catholic Christian, in the best senses of all three of those words [and notice how I did not capitalize conservative]) was best known for comedy.  He directed many of Laurel and Hardy's best films and, in fact, was nominated for Best Director twice in 1937.  One nomination was for The Awful Truth, starring Cary Grant, Irene Dunn, and that dog.  The other nomination was for Make Way for Tomorrow.  McCarey won for The Awful Truth.  He was very gracious upon accepting his Oscar but did tell the Academy, That they gave him the award for the wrong picture.

You see, there were forces and incidents at work here that made Make Way for Tomorrow, a massive box office disaster, an absolutely essential project for McCarey.  First and foremost, his father had just died and second was the creation of Social Security in 1935.  And, lastly, the country was still mired in the Depression.  1937 was a crucial year for FDR in the Depression, much of the progress from The New Deal was negated by the GOP boondoggling FDR in to repealing key work programs and the country fell in to another swoon, starting that year.

The story is bleak and unremitting.  Mom and Pop have been married for fifty years but Pop has not had a job for quite a while. They gather their children together for dinner to tell them that the Bank owns the house now.  (Another brutal twist of the knife is that the owner of the bank was one of Mom's old suitors who Pop had bested for her hand.)  None of the children have enough room or are even willing, really, to take on both parents at their own homes.  Mom and Pop will have to be separated until arrangements can be made later.

The separation does not go well.  The oldest, favorite son, eventually sees fit to put Mom in a nursing home whilst Pop has health problems, prompting a doctor to tell him that he must move across the country to California if he intends to keep on living.  Mom and Pop get one last five hour magical "date" in Manhattan before Pop catches the train and they are most likely separated for good.

It is remarkable the knife's edge McCarey and his actors walk on, keeping this film from becoming sentimental or melodramatic.  McCarey was very fond of improvising scenes in his films (which drove Cary Grant crazy, apparently) and whenever he was stuck or frustrated with how a scene was playing he would go play piano on the set until he could find his way out.  Perhaps it was McCarey's method that revealed all those awful truths from the story and the actors to play without telegraphing or pushing the audience's buttons in a cheap, condescending way?

And McCarey is like Renoir in this film.  He takes on Renoir's hyper-objectivity and never stoops to take sides.  The children, even with their failures and flaws, are not villains.  It is like the quote from Renoir's 1939 masterpiece, The Rules of the Game, "Everyone has their reasons."

I imagine there was some grumbling from the studio about the bleak, unhappy ending.  But McCarey had been so successful that probably what happened was the Moguls just decided it would be better for McCarey to get his way this time and get it out of his system.  It would be many years before McCarey made another film as heartbreaking as Make Way for Tomorrow and by then he was near forgotten, a pariah for testifying for HUAC (though he did not name names) and near the end of his career.

There are numerous scenes to bring to your attention but I am just going to mention three here, quickly.  The first, is the Bridge scene, with Mom talking way too loud on the telephone to the love of her life, desperate to hear his voice.  The second and third come back to back:  The oldest son about to tell Mom that the Old Folks Home is best for her, except Mom spares him the guilt and shame, being wise to what is planned for her, by suggesting it herself and then embracing him says, "You were always my favorite, George."; and then George with his wife at her dressing table, staring at himself in the mirror, acidly saying, "We'll always remember this day."

Naturally, despite great notices, the film was a massive flop.  And who could blame folks? This was not the sort of film Depression-era folks would be likely to spend their last nickel on.  But with the current war on good, solid commonweal government programs fully engaged, Make Way for Tomorrow is especially relevant today.  And the fact that it is a film about how shabbily we treat older citizens in our country makes it relevant in any era.

An absolute essential must-see but do not forget your handkerchief.

Checked out Lloyd's of London,

Hitch's first Icy Blonde

A 1937 film starring Tyrone Power, Freddie Bartholomew, George Sanders (his first film), and Madeleine Carroll, on TCM last night.  The story is patently ludicrous:  Bartholomew, who gets top billing, plays a young Tyrone Power, a young man from a broken home, no Da, Mum runs the local Gin Saloon, but he is great friends with a filthy rich prodigy named Horatio.  Horatio Nelson, as in Admiral Nelson.  The two kids discover an insurance scam on a ship and vow to walk together to London (one hundred miles) to garner a reward by spilling the beans to Lloyd's.  Nelson cannot go but they make a sacred pledge, bff, all that, and Bartholomew hoofs it alone.  Bartholomew trades in his reward for a job at Lloyd's, he is a complete sucker for his mentor's spiel about insurance, ships, and patriotism.

Have you fallen asleep yet? Actually all the kid stuff and the set-up of the upcoming love triangle (between Sanders, Power, and Carroll) is pretty darn okay on film.  The second half and the war and the "reunion" of sorts for Nelson and Power is laughably bad.

But you do get Ms Carroll in 18th century gowns, absolutely leaping out at you, nitrate shimmer, platinum greatness.  Carroll was Hitch's first icy blonde in two of his English films.  She, of course, is best remembered in The Thirty Nine steps, handcuffed to Donat, peeling off her soaked stockings.

She made the whole two hours worth while.

This film is not very good despite the lovely Ms Carroll.  Maybe I'll watch The Thirty Nine Steps again this weekend.

Kisses,

The GOP

Needs to grow a pair and call their their insane Ryan Voucher Care Budget by its' real name.  They know they have a serious stinker on their hands, so as the "educational roll-out" has failed, they are now lying about it and forcing Dems through the franking rules to lie about it, too.  Most of us on the Left know the GOP hates Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security and we know the GOP wants to destroy all those programs.

So why do not you GOP twits put your big girl panties on and stop lying to the nation, scaring folks?

We get it.  You have hated all those programs since they were installed.  You have screamed that they would all go bankrupt since they were installed, decades now.  (They have not gone bankrupt by the way, and are all still solvent well in to the future.)  Show some real resolve, GOP.  Get tough and be honest with the nation.  Tell the nation how you really feel.

Oh yeah, and then you would not be a political party anymore.  And you are so fond of lying, anyhoo.

Lying cowards.

Woody Allen's

Ms Cotilliard enjoys some "down time"

Latest, Midnight in Paris, is as flimsy and lovely as silk lingerie.  I do not want to talk too much about it to spoil anything for anyone.  Renee went in to it, knowing absolutely nothing and I think might have enjoyed it more than me.

I do like Woody slipping in some GOP, Teabagger jokes early.  And as the film unravels it gets even more delightful with each passing night of the story.

It was nice to see Alison Pill from Scott Pilgrim in this.  And Mimi Kennedy, too.  She was so great in In the Loop, "I'm not a monster, Liza."

Plus, Woody's opening Paris version of Manhattan is scrumptuous, as well.

2011 NBA Finals Game 6 Mini Movie

I have been v sick

And am just now coming out of it.

Mavs beat the hated Heat 4 games to two.

This post may be terrible, a little loopy, disjointed, etc, ... but after what happened last night I have to get something down.

It is amazing the runs my teams have made over the last dozen or so years.  Sooners football has a National title, four trips to the title game, numerous Big 12 Titles, Sooners basketball made it to the Final Four once and almost made it another time.  The Stars have a Stanley Cup and two trips to the Stanley Cup Finals.  The frickin' Rangers after years of lameness last year won their first ever pennant, losing in the World Serious to the Giants, as I am sure all of you know.

Then last night.

Before Renee & I started dating in 2002, my teams had given me two titles in the last few years, the Sooners in 2000-1, and the Stars in 1998-99.

Then the years of frustration started rolling, to wit:

Sooners make it to Final Four, lose to eventual Champion Carmelo's Syracuse.
USMNT defeats Mexico 2-0 in World Cup, makes it to QFinals in World Cup, loses to Germany 1-0 after outplaying them the entire game.
Sooners make it National Title game, a game they probably did not deserve to play in after getting rocked in the Big 12 Title Game by Kansas St, they lose to LSU.  (Tigers get the Trophy but AP declares USC Champions anyway.)
Sooners make it to National Title Game, we do not have cable at the time and we watch game at local sports bar with Meghan.  We slink out at halftime, Sooners down 35-7.  Final 55-19.  (NCAA vacates USC's Title for numerous violations but once again the AP does not give a shit, USC are still champs.)
Mavericks are up two games to love in NBA Finals but get robbed and let the the refs get in their heads and lose four straight games to the Miami Heat.
Sooners lose to the Longhorns but still get Big 12 Title and lose to Jebus freak, Tim Tebow, in the National Title Game.
USMNT wins Group, loses in first round to Ghana in OT.  (World Cup 2010.)
Texas frickin Rangers beat damn Yankees in ALCS, win their first pennant and are crushed, 4 games to 1 by the SF Giants in the World Serious. 


So many times.  So close, yet so far away.  Renee has been with me for all those heartbreakers.  She is not really big in to sports but carries a really great attitude, having to live with a sports freak like me.  Who knows what she thought about my teams and how their failures to get over the hump reflected on me, personally? Or, if she thought that, at all.  


And then there is my personal relationship with the NBA to consider.  I know, I know.  So many hardcore sports fanatics feel cheated by the the League Commissioners and refs.  (Just talk to any Raiders fan.) And that a lot of that is garbage.  But the NBA had a big scandal.  They punished the one "bad apple", eleven months in jail, and pretty much brushed it under the rug.  But I truly believed the Mavs were robbed in 2006.  David Stern hates Mark Cuban.  (You will notice that David Stern handed the Trophy to the Mavericks' original owner, Donald Carter, and not Cuban last night, presumably at Cuban's request.)  And then after the Warriors humiliation of the Mavs in 2007 (the "bad apple" ref'd one of the games in that series, a Mav road game that they were favored to win) I swore off the NBA for good.  


I had not seen a single NBA game from start to finish until I watched the Mavs against the Heat.  I did not follow the Mavs, at all.  I would check out Blake Griffin, former Sooner, occasionally, all the awesome dunks, and I would sometimes check the sports section to see how the OKC Thunder were doing.  


But my Ranger chat buddies at Baseball Time in Arlington dragged me back in.  I knew how dangerous that could be; how my hopes could be dashed by a v good Heat team (the Heat and Wade again?) or I might be cursing David Stern again.  

Dirk is from Wurzburg.  I've been there, was probably there when he still lived there, 1994.

But we did it.  Moreover, we were the David in this fable.  The Dallas fucking Mavericks had practically the whole country behind them due to King James monumental display of "The Decision" hubris.  The words being used to describe the Mavs Title are:  Heart, Toughness, and Team.  


Dirk gets a Title.  Jet does not have to take the tattoo off.  (There is some lame hubris, too.)  Jason Kidd gets a Title at thirty-eight.  


Of course, everyone is saying the Heat choked.  Of course, everyone is saying LeBron choked, that the Heat lost the Title more than the Mavs won it.  The Mavs and their fans do not care.  Talk talk talk all you want pundits.  The Mavericks are World Champions and finally, one of my teams got over the hump when everything mattered.  


We are the Champs.

(Now, let's go Rangers and keep this great run for Dallas going.)

Digby

With more of those pesky "facts."

Phantom: Heads Up Camera Man!

Here is the lineup for the 1949 film,

East Side, West Side:  Dir:  Mervyn LeRoy.  Starring:  Barbara Stanwyck, James Mason, Syd Charisse, Van Heflin, Ava Gardner, William Frawley, William Conrad (?!), and Nancy Davis.

From the one great scene in the film.

How can you screw this up, right?

Easy.  The script sucks.  They played to the lowest common denominator whilst "attempting" to make a sophisticated Manhattan bourgeois infidelity story.  Hell, it had so much star power, it might have played then.

It do not play now.

Still, there is one great moment in it.  Ava Gardner, supine on a couch, seducing a very married James Mason, purring about how "cheap she is" and that that is exactly what he loves about her.

We get to see Ms Charisse dance for about two seconds, and we never see her legs, at all.

Humbug.

This is not what

I expected.  But,

See ya Sunday, Heat!

The Explosions - Hip Drop

The excellent

Fire Joe Morgan blog has moved (v intermittently) to deadspin, but if you truly love baseball, I suggest you put aside a few minutes each day and pore over the archives of the original, linked above.

I nearly fell out of my chair numerous times last week, kicking o'er the traces.

Fab fab fabulous stuff.

(The old linked blog is on my blogroll now, too.)

Mwah, ... 

Like so many, even very great, silent films,

I love this photo.

The story for J'Accuse, dir Abel Gance (1919), is a melodramatic crock; a bros before hoes love triangle, including one bro wanting to kill the (adorable) progeny of the hoe being raped by three German soldiers.

Yeah, yeah, I know.  But you gotta believe me this time, this is a great motion picture, silent or otherwise.  (Apparently Gance did make a sound version of this film on the eve of World War II.  I have not seen it.)

How does J'Accuse transcend the melodrama? Well, how about the real World War I footage that is used in the third act, cut in to and along side the dramatic "the Front" scenes? Or, how about, also mostly in the third act, the quotes from actual letters from soldiers shown on the title cards? Or the chilling rape (the Germans are strictly cigar-smoking, pointy-headed shadows, consuming all light) "flashback" sequence? Or the dancing skeletons? Or the "Ode to the Sun" poem dramatization, incl double exposure and exquisite "Magic Hour" shots of a placid lake in France?

Or, how about this: (so French) the husband in the triangle is at "the Front" and has just received a letter from his wife that she has returned home at last (she does not mention the rape or the child, natch) and is eagerly awaiting his next leave.  He tells his fellow soldiers the good news and they start dancing.  Eventually, they decide to have a "feast", hey, it is the Front, but they are still able to rustle up a couple of bottles of Champers.  Meanwhile, the Germans, unaware of Francois' great fortune keep bombing anyway.  One of the soldiers has tied the two bottles of Champers together and is chilling them in the river.  Pretty brave, him, because that seems to be just about exactly where those German grenades are landing.  The soldier collects the Champers, starts to run back along the trench and is hit by a grenade.  There is a giant puff of smoke, the soldier falls, fade to black.  The next shot is of Francois and the other soldiers dancing and singing still, unaware of the "Garcon"-soldier's plight.  But, then, at the bottom of the frame what do we see? "Garcon" crawling towards the party, near death, but just before collapsing he presents the soldiers two untouched perfectly chilled bottles of Champagne.  "Garcon" is thrilled with his achievement and he checks the wound on his chest.  He dies, absolutely beaming, proud.  


You know, it is plain to me, after watching silent films by such masters as Eisenstein, Vigo, Lubitsch, Murnau, Bunuel, and now Gance that the Europeans were light years ahead of the Americans regarding great silent cinema.  It is not even close.  For this critic, Keaton, Griffith, and Chaplin are not even in the same league.  Or playing the same game.


The other great thing about good or great (there is a lot of dross out there) silent cinema is the voyeuristic quality about it.  How you feel as if you are peeking through a keyhole, spying on lovers, or a giant row.  When you are in the hands of a master, no matter how stupid the story is, it is one of the most truly erotic (that word is so overused) experiences a filmgoer can have.


One more thing:  Watching J'Accuse, lip reading were I, and I swear to Gawd that some of the actors in this French film were speaking English.  Perhaps, like Murnau's masterpiece, The Last Laugh, there were multiple "International" versions of this film and I was watching the North American version.  And you might want a Magnum of Champers with your popcorn or frites, watching the excellent J'Accuse.  It is a fifteen reeler, at least.


Kisses, ... 

They are in it to win it!

How do you write a caption for this? Suggestions, readers? In the comments?

I do not really have anything to say here.  I just love this photograph.

h/t to TBogg, he has actually got something to say.

Me, I am just laughing my ass off as each one of these GOP "candidates" come rolling out of their Clown Car.

Don't Talk - Angry Voicemail (Uncensored)

Films I am eager to see (UPDATE x 2!)

Right now,

1.  Rejoice and Shout!
2.  Midnight in Paris (Check.  Flimsy and fun as silk lingerie.)
3.  The Artist
4.  Drive
5.  Polisse
6.  Shame, starring Carey Mulligan and Michael Fassbender (no release date yet)
7.  A Dangerous Method, Fassbender again w/ Viggo, and Vincent Cassell, dir Cronenberg, about Freud and Jung, I am not making this up, release date later this year.
8.  The Trip (Check.  An absolute riot, basically a two hour set piece for Brydon & Coogan w/ lots and lots of impressions but a lame, soulful ending that still does not mess up the fun experience.)
9.  Tabloid, an Errol Morris doc about my new fave personality, Joyce McKinney, released July fifteenth.
10.  Le Nom des Gens, a French political satire about a sex pot lefty who "converts" tories by bedding them.

(And, no, I do not have any interest in Tree of Life.  Me and Malick just do not get along anymore, espec after The New World, what a gawdawful picture that was.)

Yeah, I think

That ABL over at Balloon Juice has pretty much got all this right.

Big win for Breitbart, Malkin, Hannity and all those other asshats.

Meanwhile, Thomas will not have to recuse himself if and when the ACA goes to the SCOTUS. Yeah, it sucks alright.  Par for the course, though.

It is up to us to get the word out about Clarence Thomas and that is my new mission, along with ridiculing Libertarians, Libertarians that run as GOP members, and getting those Koch Bros. servants in Wisconsin thrown out, and fighting for Marriage Equality, and getting Obama re-elected, and preserving Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security, and getting out of Afghanistan and Iraq, etc, ... 

That's a lot of work, hunh?

Is not it always? But the stakes are too high to stop fighting.

PS:  Great comment to ABL's post, something to the effect of, "Thank God, Deficit Hysteria will be replaced by Weinergate Hysteria for a while now."  That would be fine by me, honestly. 

One of my fave new entries

Cazale and Dame Meryl in the Seventies

In Thomson's latest edition is one for John Cazale, finally.

Perhaps, Thomson felt obliged because HBO produced a v good, short doc on Cazale.

Fun fact about Cazale:  Cazale was primarily a stage actor and he acted in only five films, every single one of those films were nominated for Best Picture, and three of them won.

Cazale died of bone cancer in 1978, his sweetie, Meryl Streep, there at his side.  He was my age, forty-three.

My fave performance of his would have to be Dog Day Afternoon but I am sure most of my friends probably prefer his Fredo from the Godfather pictures.

Hobbits, Orcs, and John Galt.

Do the Paul Pere et Fils even know that Rand was a hard-core atheist?

Yup, for those folks still in arrested development, who never really grew out of their Lord of the Rings/Atlas Shrugged Junior High/High School phases, I have found a place for you.

In fact, it would really benefit all of us if you, the Rand-ites would just Go Galt, already and do most, if not all, your social networking right here. 

(Man, I am sooooooo tempted to sign up and check it out but there are two problems.  One, I imagine it has got to be worse than taking a handful of Seconals trolling there and two, I'd get kicked off in no time flat, trying to inject some life in to these fifty year old tweens.)

Here is David Thomson's

"Note" about Wes Anderson in his superb, excellent, wonderful, great, The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, edition four, 2004:

Wes Anderson, b.  Houston, Texas. 1970
1994: Bottle Rocket (s) 1996: Bottle Rocket. 1998; Rushmore. 2001; The Royal Tenenbaums.
2004; The Life Aquatic 


Watch this space.  What does that mean? That he might be something one day.

************

So, I was at work.  And work has sucked so much lately.  And I have been waiting for the new Atlantic magazine.  Waiting for the Print-Love-Of-My-Life, Sandra Tsing-Loh, to satisfy my feminist sensibility w/ an article aboot Tiger Moms and how private schools are evil.

Instead, as I thumbed through the latest Atlantic, I came across a Clive James review of David Thomson's fifth edition of his The New Biographical Dictionary of Film.

When did women stop wearing hosiery? Why was not I consulted?

I got my ass as fast as I could to Barnes and Noble.  And now it is in my hands.  Thomson loves, lerves, luffs, Nicole Kidman and PT Anderson but I still love him, Thomson.

Just the most cursory glance, I see Thomson has finally written aboot Richard Linklater.  (He loves Me & Orson Welles nearly as much as me.) He has an entry on Bill Nighy(?!) Yet, I have not yet checked oot his opinion on Wes Anderson.


Surely, he will rave about 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days.  He'd better.  Or California Dreamin'


According to the book flap, Thomson has written 130 new entries for this edition.  And, apparently Thomson has updated near 300 of his old entries in this now thirty-six year old reference book institution.  


I will keep you updated as I devour this delicious meal of goat cheese salad, seared foie gras, bavette steak, and pot de creme.

(Thomson leerves himself some PT Anderson, that crappy oil film is the cover star here.  Hey, I still love Thomson.  We are allowed to disagree, right?)


Right.


Kisses, Mwah, ... 

Uh, so sorry

Wade and LBJ.  We've got a mother fucking series now.

I saw The History Boys

Frances, full of soulful introspection

Again recently on teevee the other day.  It is such a rich and moving experience with amazing performances throughout.

Frances de la Tour, Richard Griffiths, Dominic Cooper, and the rest are so wonderful to watch and it is amazing that they were able to literally take the whole original stage cast and director and seamlessly turn the stage production in to such a stellar film that I am sure many who saw the film never knew it was based on a play, at all.

It is a film I should own.  I will buy it today.  (Just got paid!)