I have bashed Bruce Jenkins enough (UPDATED w/ the good newspaper version quote!)

Times to be honest and give him his due when he is right.  (And I have never had any problem with his writing style.) 

No one wants to play with you anymore.  You are such a pain in the arse.

And in his most recent 3-Dot Lounge column of Saturday, Nine, Twenty-four, he is most righteously right.  Unfortunately the link I am about to give you here is a shortened version of the newsprint bloggy column, but I have saved that and will update later. 

Basically, Randy Galloway is also right, all "Texas does is greed." 

The Longhorns are about to destroy their second conference in as many decades.  I, and many others, are sick of their arrogance and greed and smugness. 

I wish the Sooners and OSU would just leave the frickin' Big 12 (9?), join the SEC, and let Texas play Baylor and Tech and Rice over and over and over again, watching endless replays of these pointless contests on their Elite Network, alone.  In the basement, with a bag of chips, and a Mountain Dew. 

Ugh.

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UPDATE:  Here is the rest of what Jenkins had to say, from the complete newspaper edition of his 3-Dot Lounge column (9/24/11):

"As Randy Galloway wrote in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 'Texas doesn't do equality.  It does greed.' ... That includes the competitive angle, as well.  In a weakened and vulnerable Big 12, Texas has a better chance to dominate than if placed in a 16-team conference including USC, Oregon and Stanford ... One of the great athletic universities in the country, Oklahoma, has been made to look foolish in all this.  How we'd love to see the Sooners smoke Texas- say, 38-3- at the Cotton Bowl in two weeks ... Texas' opulent network comes in a massive conflict-of-interest partnership with ESPN.  What if the 'Horns break a few recruiting laws and come under investigation? Does ESPN ignore the story?"

Jenkins goes on to talk about Jayhawk basketball, too.  You have really got to feel for them, as well.  I agree with Jenkins.  Imagine Kansas in the ACC (?!).  That would be a basketball Super-Conference.

The Magic Number is four.

You know, even if the Rangers do not do well in the playoffs (or have a total collapse and do not even make the playoffs- do you like how I am tempering my expectations to avoid a nervous breakdown?) they have had a v fine season.  Face quit bellyaching and has had a remarkable year w/ two-hundred hits and competing for the batting title.  Derek Holland has really blossomed and looks like a possible Ace going forward.  CJ Wilson (in a contract year, natch) has become our own version of Cliff Lee and Adrian Beltre has been an absolute joy to behold this year, defensively, offensively, and in the clubhouse.  It has been an awesome year for Ranger fans and this organization might just be building a dynasty.  Watch this space.

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"What do you do when your life exceeds all expectations?" "You keep it to yourself."



Drive, the movie, starring Ryan Gosling, Albert Brooks, and Carey Mulligan, looks soooooo good to me but Renee is not impressed.  So I will either have to see it by myself (I have not done that in ages- and I used to do it all the time) or wait until it hits cable/dvd.  I am really looking forward to seeing Albert Brooks stab someone in the eye w/ a fork.  (I imagine I will be wishing he was stabbing William Hurt's character in Broadcast News.)

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Renee and I have a fabulous weekend planned.  It is part of a Wedding Present, we will spend the weekend in Sonoma County at one of my Wine Rep's Country House.  It is Renee's burthdaie this weekend (Sunday) and we're going to drink, eat fabulous food (incl checking out Applewood Inn, one Michelin Star) and reeee-lax. 

I am sure I will have tons of great photos for you next week. 

Mwah, ...

Well well well

The first pitch today, Los Angeles Angels of Disneyland at Baltimore took place at prob I am guessing, 4.07 pm PDT.  Maicer Izturis flied out to deep center.  One out.

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The song Well Well Well by The Plastic Ono Band (John Lennon) released 1970, Lennon's first Album statement since the Beatles broke up, is on the face of it, a pedestrian skewed blues.  It is essentially the same blues changes repeated ad infinitum with lyrics and primal screams.

It is still one of my all-time fave tracks.  I loved it as a teenager, writing a play around it and other solo Lennon tracks.  It is also fairly obv that tracks from this stellar album (Plastic Ono Band) were massive influences on artists today, such as, Lenny Kravitz (who basically owes his career to Plastic Ono Band) and Jon Spencer, whose fans should realize that I Found Out is one of the cornerstones of his entire career.

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"I took my loved one out to dinner/So we could get a bite to eat/And though we had been much thinner/She looked so beautiful I could eat her/Well well well oh well"

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Rangers and Mariners, prob a stupid Star Wars early start:  Ian Kinsler fouls out to first.

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There is something about sports, is not there? Is not there? The absolute joy that I am feeling across three time zones, men successful, men defeated.

My wife.  My wife, "Why must you wish others lose, why is that so integral to your happiness?"

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"We sat and talked of revolution/Just like two liberals in the sun/We talked of women's liberation/And how the hell we could get things done/Well well well oh well"

Sooners receive the ball at about 5.20 PDT, the Angels are flailing and the Rangers are beginning to rally.

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Josh Hamilton, you may have heard of him, has single-handedly, today in Seattle, decided that he alone decides the AL West.  And fuck everyone else.   It his him you should consult, thank you v much, if you have questions.

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Results are pouring in.

The Dems cave.  The Yankees win.  Mariano turns in to gold before our eyes.

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There are whispers.  Perhaps the standard bearer, the Nation's number one, are not up to the task.  Perhaps it is the same again to a gazillion Sooner fans.  He is not Huepel.  He is not Bradford.  He is not ...

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The Angels lose.  Santana allows five in the first.

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My goodness, they are trotting him out, ...

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It fits the profile of the home team upset, the kid, coming off the bench, leading his team to victory w/ a 56 yd TD pass on 3rd and 28.

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It is over in Seattle.  The magic number is seven.

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"I took my loved one to a big field/So we could watch the English sky/We're both feeling guilty/And neither one of us knew just why/Well well well oh well"

It is over in Tallahasee.  Stills.  (He says, yawning, so tired, drunk.)  Stills.  Stills.  (They will dread that catch for decades in No. Florida.)

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That is the magic of sports. Today was an absolute Home Run, 2 games shaved off a Magic Number and a huge road win against a quality opponent.

But there was sweat.  And blood pressures rising.

But there is bliss, falling to bed tonight, ESPN barely blaring in the quiet dark of my bedroom.

Only sport gives you that.

Hallelujah! TCM showed Dead of Night

A few nights ago, so, it is forever locked in to my dvr until we get a good US dvd/blu ray version.

Never buy an antique mirror in Chichester, England.

The best episode in this (brilliantly) linked omnibus film is still the Robert Hamer one, starring Googie Withers.  (Although the Michael Redgrave/ventriloquist's dummy episode is damn fine, too.)  The Hamer/Withers episode is about a nice London couple, near to getting married.  For the Groom's birthday, Withers buys him a v fancy antique mirror.  He loves it (at first) but then strange things start happening.  The Groom starts getting headaches and starts seeing the reflection of himself in the mirror in a v different, older, creepier kind of bedroom than the one he lives in.  It is damn good.

And besides, how can you not like a film that has, basically, Charters and Caldicott (from The Lady Vanishes) in an episode revolving around ghosts, a rivalry for a fair young maiden's hand, and golf.  Yeah, that is right, golf.

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There is a great deal to like about the Brighton Rock remake.  For instance, Dame Helen and John Hurt are fantastic, as usual.  And the gritty, slashing, knife violence is cool.  And the Mods v Rockers on Vespas and Motorbikes is cool, too.  So, how come I am still kind of iffy about it? The score is way too heavy-handed (they shoulda used period music for the whole thing) and Andy Serkis (an actor I usually really like, espec in Longford, where Serkis plays Ian Brady to Samantha Morton's Myra Hindley) was way over the top and super lugubrious and oily.  But, still I wonder why I am not more enamored of the film.

I have not seen the original with Attenborough's break-through, legendary (in England, at least) performance as Pinky, and maybe that is it.  Or maybe, I just need more time away from the film.  Or maybe, it is just not that good.  Anyroad, ...

Love you all,
Ardent

"There's no secret to how you attack somebody.

The "Godfather" of Fox News



The one who let it all slip away.

 You call them a dirty son of a bitch.  And if you can't use the word son of a bitch you put it in something else in the paper ...  And you always suggest sodomy.  Always.  That's important.  And the communism business, which was lousy, a cheap, rotten way to hurt somebody.  And it would stick in America.  You know, by pointing a finger and calling him a communist.  That could stick."

That is a quote from Jimmy Breslin about William Randolph Hearst and Orson Welles, from the Oscar-nominated documentary, The Battle Over Citizen Kane.  (Made by two gentlemen named Epstein and Lennon, which I have always found amusing.) 

And you would like to believe that things have changed in seventy years.  But they have not, really.

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Today sees the release of the 70th Anniversary Edition of Citizen Kane on blu-ray.  All editions include The Battle Over Citizen Kane with the 1941 masterpiece. 

What Pauline Kael said decades ago is just as true, if perhaps, truer today:  "Citizen Kane is perhaps the one American talking picture that seems as fresh now as the day it opened.  It may seem even fresher." 

She is so right.

What a crazy/fantastic walk home tonight.

Dusk turns in to night as I leave the store, a small bottle of Cava in my hand.  It is still warm, surprisingly muggy, and there is constantly lightning, splitting, fracturing the sky, and sometimes ever so briefly illuminating my path forward.  Magical.

Here are some of the songs from my walk home on 9/9/11:

Queen Bitch/David Bowie
The Queen is Dead/The Smiths
Planet Queen/T Rex
Pearly Queen/Traffic
The Queen of Ur and the King of Um/Wire
Beating Around the Bush/AC/DC
I Want to Hold Your Hand/The Beatles (in glorious mono)
When You Know/The Feelies
Weather/Other Lives
50ft Queenie/PJ Harvey
Dignity and Grace/Cheater Slicks
Refried Dreams/Cheater Slicks

Kisses, ...

The story goes like this:

I posted some time ago a little thing-y about how John and Yoko starred in the first-ever Reality Show and that I thought that their  "Show" was still by far the best and most nutritious we have yet seen.  The photo attached was a silly screen grab from a recent Ranger game with bears behind home plate.

I mentioned Gore Vidal in the post, as he was one of the Witnesses/Commentators in a documentary about Lennon that was my inspiration for posting in the first place.

Then a few hours later, one of my friend-ies posted a video of the famous Norman Mailer/Vidal fight on the Cavett show many years ago.  That video, seen above, actually has a misleading title, by the way.  It is actually Cavett who pwns Mailer, not Vidal, making Mailer   look like an egotistical buffoon.

(It is entirely possible that there was absolutely no cause or effect between these two posts, granted.  But I am not a big believer in accidents or coincidences and the chain, or history, is what it is.)

Someone "liked" my friend-ie's post and then a mutual friend of ours posted his own video in the comments underneath, see above, saying, "my favorite is watching William F. Buckley lay into Vidal".  This video is even more famous than the Cavett one.  This is the famous incident wherein Buckley threatened to punch Vidal after Vidal called Buckley a "crypto-Nazi".  It happened on live television during coverage of the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.  The link for the video above is to YouTube, as was the original Cavett video, too.  The link my friend provided was not to YouTube but to a Conservative/Libertarian blog.

I was stunned.  Then furious.  But I cooled my boots and commented simply, "good grief, ... ".

Gosh, you might say, What is there to be mad about? I mean, that video is hilarious, a laugh riot.  What is funnier than watching William F. Buckley call Vidal a queer and threaten to sock him in the face so hard he will "stay plastered"? Nothing, right?

What is not so funny are the near sixty thousand US soldiers killed in Vietnam.  Or the hundreds of thousands of dead Vietnamese.  Or the autogenocide that happened in Cambodia after Nixon's secret bombing campaign there.  Or the four dead students at Kent State who were protesting the secret bombing.  Or the riots at the Chicago Democratic Convention.  Or the way that the Vietnam War tore families and this nation apart and scarred us for life.

Of course, Buckley supported the Vietnam War.  It fit perfectly in to his long standing Crusade Against Communism, which included writing a pro-McCarthy Red Scare book with L. Brent Bozell Jr, the father of L. Brent Bozell III, (and Buckley's nephew) who created the Media Research Center, which ostensibly fights "liberal media bias" in this country.

The friend who posted the Buckley/Vidal video is a Libertarian and a supporter of isolationist, Ron Paul.  I cannot imagine that he would actually support the Vietnam War.  Which means that he posted an off-topic Conservative chestnut video to score cheap political points and make Gore Vidal look bad.

But he was just joking, right?

There are some things you should not joke about.

Yes, that is right:

Marvin Miller, Joe Niekro and The Ryan Express enjoy some coffee in Manhattan, 1980.

Even Texas Legend, Nolan Ryan is a Union Man.

Shut Up, Little Man is not an

Enjoyable film to watch despite the cringing hilarity of the infamous Ray and Pat.  Ray and Pat (and sometimes Tony) were a moderately famous San Francisco "couple" that lived in the Lower Haight in the 1980s and were surreptitiously recorded by their next door neighbors, arguing loudly and constantly, whilst both lived permanently drunk.

Renee quit laughing before I did, and begged off the film before it finished.  Ray and Pat and Tony were very sad, miserable folks that eventually became a underground cottage institution without ever knowing about it.  They were the stars of a "Viral Video" before there was such a thing, their legendary drunken arguments passed around the world by cassette tape, turning in to comic books, film projects, and "hit" underground plays.  That none of the artists who used the tapes as their inspiration or base material for their art seems to care a whit for the pathetic couple, or even show a glimmer of shame for their creepy voyeuristic schadenfreude, is particularly unsettling.

The Pepto Bismol Palace, where it all happened.

Moreover, the two Midwest men, the neighbors who recorded all this, their efforts to help Pat and Tony, after the "sensation" has run its course, are so disingenuous and lame as to make me queasy, as well.

The director of the documentary makes an attempt near the end of the film to juxtapose the lives of the "Rays and Pats and Tonys" that still live in places like the Lower Haight or the Tenderloin and our "heroes", who have since moved back to the Midwest, playing touch football with their kids in the Suburbs.  To tell you the truth, I wish the director had hit this a little harder.

I quit laughing, too.  And even if I find myself recalling a famous phrase, I still feel a twinge of guilt with it.  Just because a quandary is ambiguous or debatable does not excuse you from doing the right thing.  Picking a side, even if it is wrong, is better than repressing your natural guilt by believing the dilemma to be nebulous or unsolvable.  Not much better, but better.  Better still, Do the Right Thing by your fellow man.



Kisses,
Ardent Henry

Lee Roy Selmon

Suffered a stroke last night.  He is in serious condition but improving, says his brother, Dewey. It is very sad news for Sooner fans (and football fans) all over the country.

"Thank the Lord for Mrs Selmon."

Selmon, who won two National Titles (1974 and 1975) and is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, was one of the most dominating defensive players of his generation, college and pro.  That 1974 Sooner defense was one of college football's greatest.  After being the first pick of the expansion Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Selmon helped lead and form Tampa's defense which was one of the best in the NFL for a nice run of years.

Selmon played at OU with his two brothers, Lucious and Dewey, also defensive players.  Sooner fans will always refer to the brothers as Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

And, I am told, that Sooner players, to this day, end their pre-game prayer with, "And thank you, Lord, for Mrs Selmon."

Football fans everywhere are hoping for a speedy recovery for Selmon.  And our thoughts go out to his entire family.

BOOMER SOONER!

As happy as I am to see Todd Haynes'

Fantastic Mildred Pierce get a bushelful of nominations for this year's Emmys, it is hard to take the Emmys seriously, considering that Treme did not get a single nomination and The Wire never won one, either.

Y'know, I get just as much red lipstick and nylons watching Miss Marple (and a much better story, to boot.)

But, hey, Katrina, NOLA, that's so mid-aughts.  Who gives a care about those folks anymore, really?

Meanwhile, there are a passel of new programs coming your way this season, set in the early sixties, when it was okay to say, Negro; fire women when they got pregnant; and smoke in your office.  Sweet!

Hey, I like bright red lipstick and nylons as much as any red-blooded, straight (or gay) American Dude around, but, for crying out loud, that show is soooo overrated.

And now we are going to get a dozen more or so just like it (but none as good.)

(Yeah, yeah, I know, I am no fun.  I did not Sex and the City, either.)