SB? + 7th Chords + "The Far Horizons" + Owls & Hawks

Lo and behold, I saw a couple of posts from The SB today. Are you back home, girl, or still in Iceland? One post was about the need to play more 7th chords, something I have been focusing on for several months myself. I decided I wanted to get more jazzy when I watched an old Allen Holdsworth instructional video and I saw him playing all of these two and three string inversions, and I thought it would be a good style to adapt to, due to my semi-claw of a left hand, lol. And I have been learning a whole bunch of 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, and stuff that I just make up on my own. I can't really play a full six string barre chord anymore, but in another sense having a bad hand has opened up my creativity a bit.

I'd like to take about a year and do nothing but write music. I don't know if it will ever happen, but it would work best if I had someone to write with, to bounce ideas off of like I used to do thirty years ago with the Late Great Mr. D. We wrote some tunes back then, and they were okay, but they weren't really developed. They weren't filled out musically, because I didn't know enough about the guitar neck in those days. I could hear music in my head but did not have the knowledge to fully translate it through my instrument. So we had a lot of songs, but they were melodically unfinished.

Now, I would know how to fill a song out, to develop melody and harmony lines, etc. Singing in the choir and learning to read music (sort of, lol) has helped me to make a big jump in my understanding of composition, and so has three decades of playing guitar. When me & Mr. D were writing, I was a novice, and had only been playing for a few years, having first picked up a guitar at the age of 19, in 1979.

But yeah.....I'd like to write some more music. I can do okay with my left hand, and if I wrote something I couldn't play, I could have someone else play it.

Tonight's movie was "The Far Horizons" (1955), a widescreen Technicolor adventure story starring Fred MacMurray and Charlton Heston as the famed American Explorers Lewis and Clark. The film starts off with President Thomas Jefferson announcing to Captain Lewis the news of his Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the United States. The Prez therefore wants Lewis - and Lt. Clark, whom Lewis has chosen as his partner - to head an expedition to See What Is Out There in all this land Mr. Jefferson has just bought, and If Possible, to take the expedition All The Way To The Pacific Ocean.

And oh yeah.....watch out for Indians along the way.

Luckily, they run into Sacagawea not long after beginning their journey. She is being held captive by a tribe rival to her own, and after encountering L&C, she escapes to join them.

The film was made in 1955, and so, in what would be considered a very un-PC casting today, the producers selected Donna Reed to play Sacagawea. She was very white, of course, Jimmy Stewart's sweetheart in "It's A Wonderful Life" several years before, and she does a credible job as the Indian Girl of American Lore, in brown makeup.

I don't know how historically accurate the script is, but you do get a History Lesson of sorts. I found myself doing some Googling to reacquaint myself with Sacagawea, whom we studied in (I think) 8th grade American History. Or maybe it was 6th Grade. I don't remember much about the stuff I learned in school. But anyhow, the film becomes more of a romance than an adventure by the time it enters it's final half hour. Clark has fallen in love with Sacagawea, and vice versa, and that theme is given precedence over the expedition through the Oregon Trail (that part I do recall from history class).

Overall, it's an entertaining film, from a historic standpoint, and as an adventure in Widescreen Technicolor. Mostly, though, it's a romance, and at the end........well, I shant tell you, for I do not wish to rip your guts out.

But then I suppose I have told you, in a sense. And you may already know the story of Sacagawea.

So, I give "The Far Horizons" a solid Thumbs Up as a Big Screen Big Color Big Movie Star Historical Flick, Competently Made. Had you seen it in the theater in 1955, you would have loved it, and you will certainly like it on your TV set in 2017. Please bring a single Kleenex for the ending. Thanks.  :)

The other post I saw from The SB was a pic of two beautiful owls in their nest high in a tree. The photographer captured Mr. Owl nervously presenting Mrs. Owl, who has her babies under her wing, with the family's evening meal, a captured rodent. It is clear that Mama Owl runs the show, which is usually the case no matter the species. They appear to be a Happy Family though, and that is all that matters. I saw another post today, just a random one on FB, of a Red Tail Hawk who had become lost and disoriented in the Texas storm, and he or she had found some humans in a safe place and decided to hang with them. The video was very touching indeed, because you can see the need of the wild bird to stay in a safe place, with humans (against what would normally be it's instinct), and you can also see it's trust, in it's eyes, trusting the humans to protect it from the storm.

We are learning every day about animals, and how amazing they are, how intelligent. I have talked about the Bird Chatter I hear late at night in the trees of Reseda, and the many different languages that can be discerned. I have thought that A Whole Nuther World exists in those trees, much as I have thought that Another World exists for the multitude of spiders in Aliso Canyon, whose webs entangle the tree branches throughout the entire park. The copious bird talk and the widespread webs show me worlds that exist alongside our human world, and that we don't usually notice. But in a tragedy like this storm, perhaps some of the more intelligent animals, like that hawk, are left with no choice but to say, "Hey Humans, I have always been aware of you, even though I am not of your world. But right now I need your help, so could you help me"?

That is exactly what the Red Tail Hawk seemed to be saying in that video.

Beautiful and incredible communication - inter-species communication! - brought on by dire circumstances.

Thank You Lord for showing us.  ////

Mega Hot today. It was still 97 degrees at 11:30pm, Good Lordy Moses.

See you in the morn, when it will still be hot.

"Counterpoint" w/ Heston & Schell + Nazis + Mega Hot + Chapman Was A Manchurian

Tonight movie was called "Counterpoint" (1967), which I found in the library system after doing a search on Charlton Heston. Just when you think you've seen all the big-budget WW2 studio pics of the 1960s, here comes ol' Chuck starring as - of all things - the famous and temperamental conductor of a world-class American orchestra, who just so happen to be touring war torn Europe on behalf of the USO. They are touring to entertain the troops, and as noncombatant artists, they expect to be able to travel unmolested. After all, the Geneva Convention states as much. The only problem with this scenario is that Maximilian Schell is Heston's co-star, and if anyone ever played a Nazi to the hilt, it is him. I think Schell was a very underrated actor, and from what I read, he was a pretty big star in his day. At any rate, all you have to do is watch him, in any movie, to see how great he was, and in "Counterpoint" he is more than a match for Maestro Heston.

The orchestra is en route to another USO-sponsored concert, when they are diverted by German spies posing as American soldiers. Such things actually happened. The Germans had soldiers who had lived in the US as children, and could do, say, a Southern accent with no problem. So Heston and his musicians are tricked, and soon they are pulled over by German soldiers and captured, and taken to a castle, where General Schell and his evil henchmen have set up headquarters.

General Schell has a standing order to execute all prisoners (Geneva Convention notwithstanding) because the Nazis are running out of resources and can't afford the expense, at this point in the war, of extra mouths to feed.

But - and here's the part that hooked me - General Schell is not only a classical music fan, but he is aware of Maestro Heston, and had seen him conduct in years past, before the war.

Shades of "The Pianist"! I wonder if Polanski had ever seen this film....

Anyhow, we have all seen The Cliche of The Evil But Cultured Nazi, but here - perhaps because Schell gives his character some depth - we are shown the complexity of his motivations. He is a Nazi, by choice and by force of Hitler's Germany, but he is also a Man Of Culture who feels some Hero Worship of another sort, from one of his musical heroes, who is suddenly his captive. He worships this man, but now he has power over him. And he has a subordinate Colonel who could not care less about music, who is fanatical about Hitler and who wants to execute the musicians as soon as possible, as per the orders from High Command.

Schell is caught between a rock and a hard place. He knows he has to follow through with the executions, but first - he demands a concert from the orchestra.

And therein lies the plot : A Nazi General vs. a Famous Conductor and His Orchestra.

Now c'mon - you know you never expected to see a movie with a story like that. I've seen a couple dozen WW2 movies in which Evil Nazis go up against all kinds of foes (usually Americans, English, French or Russians), but I have never before seen them battle a symphony orchestra and it's conductor.

Heston is a General in his own right; a General Of The Arts, and Schell - as a Cultured Nazi - respects him as such. The movie is mostly about the star power of the two big-league actors, though several sub-plots keep the interwoven storyline moving along. One has to to with a Beautiful Woman, the wife of the First Violinist, who was formerly involved with Heston, and whose beauty has now attracted the interest of Maximilian Schell. This coincides with an Escape Plot, planned by two American Soldiers who happen to have been captured with the orchestra, and been mistaken as fellow musicians.

So there you have it! There is a Ton Of Stuff going on in this movie, which was shot in wide-freakin'-screen Technicolor. Boy, could they ever shoot some Widescreen Pictures in the 1960s, the era of the Cinerama Dome and other such specialised theaters.

I can't quite give it the kind of Gigantic Five Star Humongous Titanic Thumbs Up that I have given a few recent pictures, but only because the direction does not quite play to the strengths of the script. Or maybe I've got it backwards. Maybe the screenwriter did not tighten things quite enough. Or maybe the producers, who really call the shots, wanted a face-off between the two Stars, Heston and Schell.

It was the 60s, and it was Big Budget, and it was the final years for this kind of War Film : very Studio, very Staged.

But because they had some really great actors and a lot of money and great sets, they pulled it off.

So rather than give it a rave review, which would indicate a movie that has blown me away on an emotional level, I simply give it a Strong Thumbs Up.....

Because......well hey - Classical Music against The Nazis. You won't see that in any other movie except "The Pianist". And I'll bet a nickel that Polanski saw this flick beforehand.  :)  ////

Hot Beyond Measure today. 111 degrees but felt hotter because of the humidity. No hike, though, because it was Golden Agers Tuesday. Instead, I just read my books during breaks : "Van Halen", "Grim Sleeper" and Peter Levenda's "Sinister Forces- A Warm Gun" (Book Two in the series). I am at the point in the book where he is examining the case of Mark David Chapman. That guy was convicted without a trial, and after reading about his life and his activities in the years and months leading up to his evil deed, I have no doubt whatsoever - knowing the CIA as I do - that he was a brainwashed and programmed Manchurian Candidate, worked on for a long time and then sent out to kill John Lennon, who was only an artist who was trying to make people happy, and to make them think.

Baby Sheep + Finally Some Summer + Monk/Van Halen

Hey Elizabeth : That was a nice picture of you with the baby sheep! Are you at a farm? Or maybe if you are staying with the lady who took the photo, perhaps the Kid belongs to her. A baby sheep is a Kid, right? I think so, lol, but anyhow, I am glad you are having a great time, and the Sheep Motif lines up with what I was writing about the movie "Montana" a couple of nights ago, in which Errol Flynn portrayed a "sheep man" encroaching on cattle ranchers in Big Sky Country. So maybe you are still reading the blog after all, or if not you, then maybe the sheep is, haha.

But yeah, a very sweet picture. Animals rule. :) Keep having a blast in Iceland!  :)

Today the Valley was definitely not an Ice-Land (bad pun; c'mon Ad, cut it out), in fact it was 108 degrees.

So you know it was the perfect time to head out to Santa Susana for a hike to the top of The Slide.

The truth is that I had been feeling gypped on this Summer. Sure, we had a handful of triple-digit days back in June, but since then we've been hovering in the low 90s and down to the upper 80s. Positively Springlike it's been, but not Summery, save for perhaps the five aforementioned days many weeks ago. I had mentioned to Grimsley that I was gonna ask for a refund on my Summer. Grim hates hot weather. I love it. You decide who is The Nutty One, lol. But in any event, just as my refund was about to be processed, I have withdrawn my request, as this entire week is predicted to be 105 or higher.

I think I can trace my love of heat back to Kid Memories (there's that word again -"Kid") when school was out and it was super hot and we were all having a blast. When I was 16, we would play baseball in 100 degree heat. It always made me feel energised, though I can understand 100% why most folks don't like it. Also, I think I associated it with Summer Fun. And I love both - Summer, and Fun. 

Anyhow, the refund request has been cancelled, and even though this has been mostly a wimpy Summer, it is now being made up for with a scorching finish. And, since here in L.A. our Summer lasts until Halloween (give or take a few days), we still have a chance for more "Nice" Weather (hehe).

No movie tonight, though I did watch an episode of "The Prisoner" (1967), Patrick McGoohan's short lived but brilliant series about an Intelligence Agent Who Knows Too Much. I am on Episode 11, with six more to go.

I am about a third of the way through Noel Monk's Van Halen book, and am learning that - according to Monk, who should know - that David Lee Roth was not only the leader of the band from an ambition standpoint, but that he was "by far" in Monk's words, the smartest guy in the band. I have read versions of this assessment before, but Monk insinuates that the Van Halen brothers are basically musical geniuses (meaning Edward mostly) but near-dumbells in other respects - general education and overall smarts. Roth was a Pasadena Rich Kid, son of a doctor who lived in a mansion, and the Van Halens were close to dirt poor, living in a small bungalow in the same town.

Monk is blunt in his writing, and there is a lot about Roth that is not pleasant either.

But what blew me away was the money. Would you believe that the band Van Halen, who went on their first national tour (with Journey and Ronnie Montrose) after the release of their hugely successful debut album in early 1978, were being paid $750 bucks a week?

Collectively, as a band. $750 dollars a week by Warner Brothers, which - when roadies were paid, etc. - left each band member with about 100 dollars in income, per week. Plus a 25 dollar per diem for food.

This is while their album was going Gold within a month or so, and Platinum not long after.

Now, they wound up recouping a lot of money as the years went by, and each member is no doubt fabulously wealthy nowdays. But it's a stunner to read the way in which new bands were treated, even Van Halen who had already proven themselves to sell out shows and sell tons of albums.

It reminds me of Sammy Hagar's story in his book "Red", in which he talks about coming off the first Montrose tour in 1974, which was done by the band in support of a very popular debut album (also on Warners and also produced by Ted Templeman). When Sammy came off the tour, he found that he was so broke he had to apply for food stamps.

Of course, the financial aspect of record company support in those days meant huge promotional budgets and recording costs that had to ultimately be repaid by each band. Record sales would be detracted from the total, and concert revenues and such. But when you read Noel Monk's view of these practices, and he was an insider, you can see how badly many artists were taken advantage of.

Van Halen might have wound up nearly as broke as when they began, if they had not been able to get out of their initial contract with Warner Bros.

This book is a real eye opener to the way things worked in the music industry in those days.

Highly recommended for Van Halen fans.  :)  ////

Tobe Hooper, Genius

Back at Pearl's. Tired Beyond Measure as usual on a Sunday night. Good singin', however - we sang an old spiritual "work song" (i.e. sung by slaves) called "Go Down Moses". It is full-on Gospel call-and-response, and I was on the response side : "Let my people go"! I was trying to sing with as much soul as I could muster, singing my guts out really. Not bad for a white guy.  :)  Our director said it was the best singing job we have done to date, which was nice to hear. Bring on the Gospel tunes!

I woke up this morning to find that Tobe Hooper had died. Make that "The Great Tobe Hooper". For the uninitiated, he directed the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", and if you have seen that film then you know why he was one of the greatest directors of all time  - even though he didn't have a lot of other great films. Still, to make that film - a horror movie so terrifying because of it's grim and gritty realism - was enough to cement his legend as far as I am concerned. I can't begin to tell you the effect that "Chainsaw" had on my life. For one thing, I literally did not sleep the night I saw it, at a re-run theater in December 1977, more than three years after it's initial release. I was 17 then, and not hardly squeamish, but that movie scared the Bejeezus out of me and I could not sleep as a result. That had happened only one other time, when I was 13 and saw "The Exorcist".

For my money, those are the two scariest movies ever made, "Chainsaw" and "Exorcist". And they are so terrifying because there is no fantasy involved. In both movies, you are taken from a real world situation immediately into something that can't possibly be real, but it is.

That's how you do Horror, and Tobe Hooper in 1974 made it more real than it had ever been before. "The Exorcist" was big budget and slick (though no less frightening) but in "Texas Chainsaw" you are right freakin' there with wheelchair-bound Franklin and the gang, when they pick up the hitchhiker in their van, and he turns out to be a psycho. It feels and looks 100% real, and in your subconscious you are hit by the notion that you are just one mistake away - at any given moment - from falling into a nightmare. Which is why our parents told us "don't talk to strangers", etc.

But in "Chainsaw" they are Hippies, and it is the early 70s, and they do pick up the hitcher because that's what Hippies do, even Hippies from Texas. And suddenly, their day trip to visit an Old Family Homestead Out In The Boondocks turns into a surreal horror show. 

I am reading the Christine Pelisek book on "The Grim Sleeper" and it's the same deal, though less Grand Guignol: these women were going about their respective business on the given days in question, and had what would seem to be full control over their lives, at least In That Moment. Many were addicted to crack, though, and so - even though they were just walking down the street one minute (perhaps to the liquor store or to a friend's house), their lives were changed suddenly.

Because a man pulled up and offered them a ride, maybe offered to get them high. And he was a crazy man, 100% insane and evil.

I make the comparison in trying to describe the effect of "Chainsaw" because the key aspect of true horror is that it is Sudden. And it also occurs in the same milieu as The Safety Of Everyday Life.

One minute you are in a van with your friends, tooling along......the next minute you pick up a hitchhiker. Something you probably shouldn't do, but you are a Hippie and it is the 70s. And within seconds, everything changes, even though you are still in the same surroundings, driving down the same road. The same with the women and The Grim Sleeper.

Well anyhow, that was Tobe Hooper's genius, to portray in every aspect - picture, sound, texture, rhythm, tension - how real life changes into horror within minutes, due to a bad decision. And how the setting for both everyday life and for the changeover into a nightmare, is the same thing. The same place, or at least the same general area.

Horror then, is a matter of degrees from everyday life. That is the genius of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre". 

Tobe Hooper also made "Texas Chainsaw 2", a worthy (if goofy) sequel that came out in 1986, and "The Funhouse" in 1981, and also the trashy-but-horrific "Eaten Alive" in 1977. See 'em all, says I.

And you have probably already seen "Poltergeist" and maybe even "Salem's Lot". With those two we are talking the works of Spielberg and Stephen King, who were both big fans of Hooper's, which is why they chose him to direct those flicks.

Well, I've dedicated almost the whole blog to Tobe Hooper, but he deserves it.

BTW, I have always pronounced his first name as "Toab". It is actually pronounced "Toby", and I have known this since about 1979 or so, but I will always pronounce it "Toab", because it sounds better. 

Tobe Hooper : what a name, what a director, what a genius.

If you have never seen "Texas Chainsaw", you need to see it (or not see it) as soon as possible, depending on your relationship to horror.  :)

That is all.  ////  

Iceland! + Red Dress + "Montana" w/ Errol Flynn

Hey, Elizabeth - glad to see you made it to Iceland! I wasn't sure if that trip was still happening, because you hadn't mentioned it in a while. I figured that it might have been postponed due to your move to Chicago and the time and expenses involved, so it was a nice surprise to see your fantastic photo this morning. The Red Dress is back, and is now going worldwide! I liked your Mom's hashtag on FB: reddresscampaign#. That is perfect and it's what I've been saying all along during this series of photos, that the Red Dress acts as an icon. Now, so does The Girl Who Wears The Red Dress, of course! But the very redness of the dress, it's crimson color and it's ball gown shape, always makes it stand out directly in contrast to whatever environment you set it in. In that way it is a form of iconography, and it also creates a mysterious or dreamlike quality, while remaining very realistic, very "there".

You have created your own thing with the Red Dress Series, and now this photo in the cave really takes it to another level. That is one Far Out Looking Cave! It's huge, for one thing. It's volcanic, I take it? I know that Iceland is a geologic wonderworld. Hilary Hahn (with whom you share a birthday) went there specifically for inspiration for an experimental album she recorded with Hauschka the pianist. The music is all based on features of the landscape, and in the case of one piece it is based on some kind of continental split or something major like that. Whatever it is, I am sure you will see it. I'll bet you are having an incredible time, so post more pics if you get a chance (if you are still reading this blog, lol).

Man, I have gotta see that cave someday myself. Imagine the people, the humans, who over time have been inside that cave. Now that is quite a thought.  :)

Tonight's movie was "Montana" (1950), a Technicolor Western starring Errol Flynn and the fiery and statuesque Alexis Smith, who was paired with Flynn in several other Westerns. He has always been one of my favorites as a Pure Movie Star (and a decent actor as well), and it goes without saying that he was one of the handsomest men in the history of film. If you love movies, ya gotta love Errol, and I do, beginning with "The Adventures Of Robin Hood", which probably everyone in the world has seen by now. In "Montana", he plays a "sheep man". I suppose this was a contemporary term of the late 19th century, used instead of "shepherd" to describe a rancher or drover of sheep. A cow rancher was a Cattleman, ergo a sheep rancher was a Sheep Man.

Should I have lived in the Old West, or what?  :)

Anyhow, apparently the Cattlemen did not like the upstart Sheepmen, who had begun trying to drive their herds on the same cross country trails the cows used. It was thought that sheep were unclean, and that cattle would die from eating the same fields.

So here comes Errol Flynn to change all of that, with historic Hollywood Charm & Looks. Unfortunately, he runs up against Cattle Baroness Alexis Smith, for whom Technicolor was made. She is partnered with a local Cattle Corporation and has Henchmen and a Macho Fiance at her beck and call. And - she just plain hates sheep, and Sheep Men.

But of course she cannot ultimately resist the charms of Flynn, whose ragtag band of drovers assist him in bringing his herd through to Montana.

There is a Stampede near the end, so you know it is a great Western on that point alone.

But the real selling point is the Star Charms of Flynn and Smith, and the romance that entails, and the Technicolor which is spectacular. The interior decorators in Western times could show the current crop a thing or two about style and pattern. And on top of that, you also get a Hollywood History Lesson, which was In Vogue in those days, about the Range Wars between Cattle Ranchers and Sheep Men in the state of Montana, which was at the time the repository, the final destination of the nation's cattle for processing. It's when beef really became a big commodity.

So you get a history lesson of the past with your Star Power.

I have always loved hamburgers and steaks myself, over lambchops, though I once had "sheepskin" seat covers for my BMW 320i. They were probably faux.

One day I will probably go vegan, or at least vegetarian, if I can figure out a way to get enough protein and also get full. I already eat a ton of vegetables and fruits, but I don't get full from them. I wanna stay healthy so I can live to be 100 and get A Ton Of Stuff Done.

People in The Old West just went with what they had at the time. They may not have always lived to be 100, but they probably didn't have the anxieties we live with today.  ////

That's all for tonight. Tomorrow morn, an easy song to sing : "Go Down Moses", a call-and-response Gospel number that you can belt out and even improvise on, ala the black churches.

Watch out!  :)

"A Man Called Peter" (Five Stars) + Noel Monk's Van Halen Book

Tonight I am writing from home. I am off for about 36 hours, until Sunday morning. Today was busy, as it always is on a transition day, when I am getting ready to hand off Pearl's care to her daughter for a day or two. Lots of shopping, cleaning, making sure things are ship-shape. Therefore, no hikes were had this afternoon, and not even any reading. But tonight I am chillin', and tomorrow too, for I will be back on the job before you can say "Jack Robinson".

Where does that saying come from anyway? I mean - who the heck says "Jack Robinson" these days? (aww, shut up Ad).

Okay. I will.

Now where were we? I am not sure. After the SB (much like the Voodoo Chile) made a Slight Return yesterday, I was hoping she might post once again today, but it was not to be. Not as far as I can determine anyway. I will keep looking, however. And as always Elizabeth, I trust all is well and that you are feeling at home in your new city.  :)

Well, did I ever see a great movie tonight. Wow and Double Wow. It was called "A Man Called Peter" (1955). I had never heard of it before, but I discovered it in a search of the Library database for Henry Koster, a director of another film I had recently seen that I can't recall at the moment because I am tired and my brain is filled with too many doggone details. But that's how I discovered this film, and because it had a fairly high IMDB rating, I decided to give it a try.

The movie stars Irish actor Richard Todd as a real-life Presbyterian Minister named Dr. Peter Marshall, whom I had also never heard of before tonight. The film is basically a bio-pic of his life, his calling from God to become a minister and his move to America from his native Scotland in pursuit of this objective. In short order he has landed a position at a small church in Georgia, where he meets his future wife, the gorgeous Jean Peters. Soon he is advancing by leaps and bounds, first to a larger church in Atlanta, and then finally to Washington D.C, where the bulk of the film takes place. His rapid advancement is due in no small part to his truly incredible sermons, about which I shall only suggest that you watch the movie to hear them for yourself - if I tried to describe them I would, at best, only water down their immense power. Actor Richard Todd (according to my post-film research) listened to hours of Dr. Marshall's sermons to get the passion of his words across onscreen, and boy did he ever achieve that goal. He should have been nominated for an Oscar for his performance.

"A Man Called Peter" is based on a book by his wife, and all I can say is that, if anybody ever wondered what Christianity is really all about - really and truly all about - I would heartily recommend they see this movie. You see, if Christianity was not really and truly about boundless Love and Faith, and Hope, and about the Magic and Wonder of life, as taught through the life and works and words of Jesus Christ, then I myself would not be a Christian. And as it is, I consider myself first and foremost a follower of Jesus more than a standard "Christian" because that word has become so bastardised. The so-called philosophy behind much of "popular Christianity" has been used to convey Fear, and Divisiveness, and Dread, and even Hatred. It has been used to convey a sense of Superiority, and so many other sinful and negative feelings.

Dr. Peter Marshall, who ministered in the 1940s, and who wound up ministering to the United States Senate, blew all of this false Christianity - this Fear Based, Divisive, Anti-Truth-Of-Jesus version of the religion out of the water, and he did so with his incredibly impassioned and perfectly worded sermons, using deeply philosophical but easy to understand analogies that would fire anyone's soul.

Soon he was drawing in lines of young people, who would pack his church on Sunday mornings.

Trust me - even if you have never heard a Sermon in your life, and are certain you would never want to, this man's words would blow you off the map, in any respect of life (or even death) you might consider. He often spoke extemporaneously, as if God was speaking through him, and the words are simply wonderful to hear. Thank You To The Filmmakers, and to the actor Richard Todd, for actively portraying True Christianity. A Huge Thank You Indeed.

The movie is equally a love story, a romance, and if you are like me this aspect of the story will give you a very good feeling. Jean Peters - who gets to give an Incredible Speech of her own - plays the type of woman every good man dreams of. Once again, to describe the romantic theme of the film would be to lessen it.

Every romance should be like this one, and every marriage. Beautiful is the only word.

The movie also works well as Pure Story, it never lags, and it is also shot in glorious CinemaScope. It has the colorful pastel look of the great Douglas Sirk films and was nominated for an Academy Award for cinematography.

I simply cannot recommend "A Man Called Peter" highly enough. It is a must see for anyone, Christian or not, simply because of Dr. Peter Marshall himself, whose words are what I have been trying to say for much of my adult life. Boy was he ever Tuned In.

I give it Five Gigantic Stars, and posthumous Oscars to both Richard Todd and Jean Peters. Come back, Dr. Marshall - we need you in Washington today.  ////

In "Book News", I have begun reading the Noel Monk/Van Halen book, which I am way too tired to get up from the computer and look for the title of, but which I finally got from The Libe today, after a couple of months on the hold list. Monk was VH's tour manager, then their full on manager, until 1985 when David Lee Roth quit. I am fifty pages in, and there are a lot of details about the signing of the band, and what it is like to be on your first big rock tour, but so far I don't think it measures up to the Van Halen book I read a year ago, called "Van Halen Rising", which is encyclopedic in it's scope. That's the book that covers the full on early history of the band. But Monk's book looks to be a good read as well, and it even has a few pictures of that big ol' VH security guy Eddie Anderson, who was supposed to give us backstage passes after the Las Vegas show in 1981. I remembered him when I saw his photo in the book. But I don't recall if we ever got the passes or not.

Well anyhow, the Rock Keeps On Rollin', as it were.

Man you've gotta see this movie (and read both Van Halen books).

That's all for tonight.

SB + TV + Music Biz

I finally saw two posts from Elizabeth - The SB is back! (at least for today). So, girl, if you are reading this, one post was about being stuck on the road somewhere in Wyoming, presumably after the eclipse, as 100,000 people were all trying to depart at the same time, wherever this was. Denver, I think. Your other post was a picture of the sun, posted by a Scandinavian person. I don't think it was of the eclipse, but maybe so. It was a great pic either way. At any rate, as is the case at the moment, I have no idea if those posts were meant for me, but if they were I take it that perhaps you have been on a road trip yourself? Maybe having to do with the eclipse? Post more if you want to. I am right here, as always.

Today was Pearl's birthday, as noted yesterday. Because it was Thursday, I took her to her regularly scheduled appointment at the Hair Salon, but we did not end up doing much else, because that visit always takes a couple of hours and Pearl is often tired when it's over. So we will postpone the birthday lunch until tomorrow, when no other activities are scheduled.

That's all to report for today. No movie, but I did watch an episode of "The Loner" (Rod Serling's short-lived Western series starring Lloyd Bridges). Having finished the entire series of "The Outer Limits", I now need a new sci-fi fix to go with my Western one. As previously noted, Western TV shows abound - I've still got almost 90 episodes left of "Tombstone Territory" alone, lol - but good TV Science Fiction is hard to come by. The early 50s "Space Ranger" genre was made for children, and the revival of sci-fi in the 80s and early 90s is too slick for me - shot in color and not nearly Weird Enough. I liked "Quantum Leap" when it came out, but it would not work for me now.

I need Weird, because I was Born Into Weird. "Outer Limits" and "Twilight Zone" were on the air at the exact time that I was able to begin watching television. And even though I may not have grasped the intricacies of those shows as a small child, I still watched them every week.

Just for the heck of it, here's the very early TV shows I recall watching as a child : "Outer Limits" (which blew me away because it was so scary and weird), "Twilight Zone" (I probably watched both these shows with my parents, and "T-Zone" was by Uncle Rod, so my Dad would have watched even though he didn't like TV).

"Combat" was one of my early favorites. Big Time WW2 with Vic Morrow. That's because of Dad once again (and the influence of television - and Dad worked in television during it's beginning, at ABC in Hollywood).

"The Patty Duke Show". Little Me liked girls right away, and I thought Patty Duke was cute. And the show had a great theme song, and William Schallert was her nice guy Dad.

"Secret Agent" starring Patrick McGoohan. I bought this whole series on dvd a few years ago, and McGoohan is as bad ass as I thought he was back in 1964. And, it had one of the best theme songs ever, "Secret Agent Man" by Johnny Rivers, which became a big hit on Top 40 radio too.

TV was a whole lot different back then. What happened to TV was kind of like the same deal that happened to the music industry. Once the Old Studio Systems were broken up, and the mediums were opened up to everybody, the result - in both cases, music and television - was a tidal wave of Pure Garbage. Which is bound to happen when you open up the floodgates to the egotistical masses of culturally deprived, ill educated and suddenly "entitled" folk who fancy themselves creative.

The guys who originally ran the TV and Music Bizzes knew what the F they were doing, businesswise, and - even if their heads were wrapped around bottom lines rather than creative drives, they still trusted the very talented directors and actors and writers of the era to deliver them a quality product. They trusted their Artistic Personnel. And the same was true in the music industry. Corporate types ran the business aspect, and they trusted their producers, artists and publicists to create revenue.

And so, in both mediums, the heads of the companies trusted the Artistic Types to come up with a sellable product.

The result was the Great Television Era of the Mid-1950s to the Early 90s (with a few exceptions in years), and what was once known as The Music Business, where the execs were just as important as the artists, because there were Artists, and because the Executives left them alone - via the A&R Men, to just make their music.

Creativity ruled, creativity was trusted to sell product. And so, when I was a small child, I was lucky to be born into a Golden Age of great television - broadcast TV! - and also, thank The Lord, the greatest era of popular music that ever has been - the era of Rock 'N Roll, from 1963 until.......well, what do you think? Is Rock still alive? I think it is, but not by much.

What we need to revive it, is big budgets, and great producers and engineers that can help fledgling bands find their way. Same for new TV shows that are truly creative and not just "habit forming" like so many of the Shows Of The Day these days.

We need Big Money For Art - big budgets to develop talent, so that talent doesn't have to go it alone.

Then you might one day have another creative rennaisance, like the one I was so fortunate to experience as a child. /////

"The Black Shield Of Falworth"

Sorry I haven't written for the past couple of nights. It's just been harder to come up with stuff to talk about since the SB went away. I used to really enjoy talking about her music and photos and responding to her posts on FB, but she has seemingly disappeared. I'll try putting out a call, just for the heck of it :

"Esss-Beeee! Where are you? Come back, Esss-Beee"!  I miss you and miss writing to you. :)

That just went out over the loudspeaker. Let's see if it does any good. Meanwhile, I hope my reader in Malaysia hasn't deserted me.

When I have a movie I can always write, and tonight's movie was called "The Black Shield Of Falworth" (1954). Now that's a great title, and you can almost guess from it that the movie is of the "Knights Of The Realm" genre that was popular in the early 50s. It was apparently the very first picture made in widescreen Cinemascope too, and it looks great even on a TV set today. The movie stars Tony Curtis as a peasant farmer living with his sister and an uncle. In a chance meeting (and brawl) with a local knight, he discovers that there is a secret about his family, and himself, which interests the King, and he is ultimately summoned to the King's Castle along with his sister, the beautiful Barbara Rush.

The intrigue builds from there, as I often say, in order to abridge my movie reviews. Otherwise I'd ramble on and we'd be here all night, and I have no idea what time it is in Malaysia, or even what day. But - back to the movie - not only does the intrigue build but so does the romance, a great combination in any film, and especially one in which chivalry, jousts, and swordfights share center stage with the romantic foundation of the script. This is why you were in the theater when you went to see this movie in 1954, because of chivalry and love. And as you know, I am a sucker for those two things.  :)

I was a little apprehensive about watching the film at first, because I wasn't sure about Tony Curtis as the star. That just goes to show you that I wasn't around in the 1950s, when he was a huge star, so big that Elvis said he copied his hairstyle after Tony's. If I had been around then, I'd have gone to these movies upon first release in the theater, and would have already known that, despite his Bronx accent, Tony Curtis more than holds his own against the staid cast of Elder American and British Character Actors That Are Required To Fill Out The Roles In Such A Medieval Movie. Curtis is great, and as a bonus, you get the gorgeous Janet Leigh (pre-Psycho by six years) as his Lady Fair. She was of course his Real Life Wife right around that time, which resulted in the birth of their daughter Jamie Lee Curtis, of "Halloween" fame. But "Black Shield" is all about them, and while it is perhaps just a rung lower than the greatest "Knight" movies like "Ivanhoe" and "Knights Of The Round Table" with Robert Freakin' Taylor, it is still way up high on the ladder, and still gets Five Stars simply for entertainment value and the look of Cinemascope.

You couldn't make these movies today, not even with Brad Pitt and Clooney, because the innocence is gone. Now that would be true acting - to try and recapture the innocence and honesty of a bygone era - the 1950s - and to pull it off. 

We need to go back to A Different Era, because this current one sucks.

And the thing is, that we are just People. We don't have to live the way we do. We have imagination, and we should use it, instead of relying on the news media (and what they promote) to create our reality for us.

I shant go on a tirade tonight, however. Tomorrow is Pearl's birthday and I need to get some sleep so that I can make it a fun day or at least try to. She will be 93, which is pretty amazing.

I hope to make it that far myself, and even further. I could live indefinitely, if my body could handle it, and if the world could backtrack - or shift ahead - to a place of good and steady values like we had in the 1950s, and of course with the inclusion that we have advanced toward today, we might have a steady society.

If I were President, I would pull it off, guaranteed.  :)

Eclipse + Kardashev

Tired Beyond Measure. Huge Bags Under My Eyes. Can't sleep in tomorrow cause of The Eclipse. I mean, I could sleep in but I don't wanna miss it. SB, it looks like you guys are gonna get a pretty serious version of the eclipse in Chicago. I just checked the simulator and it looks like about 80% or more. Are you gonna take any pictures? I hope so. Post 'em if you do. I am a knucklehead and forgot to bring my camera to Pearl's. We are gonna get a 60% eclipse, which is pretty cool, but not as much as you will get. I have no idea if you are reading this, but anyhow, hope you get some cool pics; not necessarily of the Sun itself, but perhaps just photos of regular surroundings lit by The Quality Of Light.


Isn't it a trip how, in the pathway of a 100% eclipse, the Moon fits exactly over the Sun, from our vantage point here on Earth? Hmmm......I wonder how that happened.

And I am not joking. Could someone have Parked The Moon? I know : "C'mon, Ad - way too far out".

It's just that : Isn't it interesting that, from the vantage point of Earthlings, the Moon fits exactly over the Sun. And that's not the only interesting thing about the Moon and it's placement in the sky. You can Google it. I'm too doggone tired to describe it tonight.

Have you heard of the Kardashev scale? He was an astronomer in Russia in the 60s who must have contemplated the UFO phenomenon, because he came up with a series of classifications of the potential technological development of global civilisations, based on their ability to harness power, the physical power inherent in the Universe. You can Wiki him for exact descriptions, but for a generalised view, I can tell you that a Kardashev "Level One" civilisation has the ability to harness all the energy that is transmitted to it's planet, by the planet's parent star. So, for us that means we are on our way to becoming a Level One Civilisation. We have harnessed electricity (transmitted), Fossil Fuels (a result of the biological energy distillations, over time, here on Earth. And we are working on Solar and Hydrogen energies. And of course there is Zero Doubt that elusive elements within the military and elite defense contractors like Raytheon and others have developed technologies that far surpass those which we, the public, are aware of. They just want you to drive your gas-powered, smog producing car for as long as they can, because they (or rather, They) own oil companies. They just wanna sell all their product before they are forced to switch. But you already know that.

Anyhow, a Kardashev "Level Two" (or "Type Two") would be a civilisation that can directly harness all the energy from it's parent star. Not via solar panels, but like having a direct plug-in to the Sun, perhaps through the use of mirrors in space, and other utilities that would vector all of the star's energy into a controlled system of massive storage, for abundant use over the entire planet, which would then be diversified by other technological means for every aspect of energy consumption on the host planet.

So for us, "Level Two" would be if we could harness the Sun for every last type of energy we need. For cars, for ships, for factories, cities, the whole planet. Everything run by the Sun, which is releasing a constant nuclear reaction.

Kardashev "Level Three" would be if a civilisation could control the energies of an entire Galaxy.

So now we are talking about Parking The Moon, or - more presentable to every Star Wars fan thanks to Mr. Lucas - actually creating a planet-sized Space Ship like the Death Star. Now, you can Google that too. I can't remember which one it is, but the Death Star looks very close to one of Saturn's moons.

So you know that's why George Lucas depicted it that way, as a Spaceship.

Lucas is a Billionaire pioneering filmmaker, and so - like Spielberg (who made "Close Encounters") has been made Privvy To Stuff.

There is a Kardashev "Level Four" (he calls it "Type Four" but I like "Level" better) which calls for the harnessing of the energies of the entire Universe. You can cue Michio Kaku for that one.

I am outta here because I am Far Beyond The Realms Of Tiredness. If Kardashev did a Tiredness Scale, I would be a Level Four. I would have Harnessed The Tiredness Of The Entire Universe.

But the Important Point for tonight is........that exact fit of the Moon over the Sun.

If that doesn't strike you as at least a tiny bit strange, then you aren't paying attention. ///

See you tomorrow after the Eclipse, or the Sleep-In, whichever comes first........

Married

No news today (as usual). They say "no news is good news" and that is true in the General Sense, but in my life it is true only in the Boring Sense. I wish I had Some News For Ya, but I work all the time, and during my off hours I don't have anybody to do anything with. And - I've said it a million times but it "bears repeating" (cue high-pitched Jack White voice) - that I do not wanna just Hang Out With The Boyz anymore. I wanna get married.

Well anyhow........yeah, I know......."snoozeorama, Ad". Quit complaining. It's just that I need something to bring the old spark back. Then I will be the Life Of The Party that you know and love.

But the focus is 100% on Getting Married, and so I am now initiating a Mind Control Operation for the Desired Result. I am shy so I need a bit of help, lol. And also......I can't get married to just anyone. No dating for me, or anything like that. Those approaches don't work. I don't wanna marry someone I meet, but don't know, and like, but don't love. Love is Magic, and you have to Believe In Magic to find Love. Not "like" Love, which many marriages are based on, but Love That Was Meant To Be. And, for me anyway, I don't believe that can be found by dating. My whole life has been based on Meant To Be, i.e. Destiny, but a Gigantic Monkey Wrench has been thrown into the works, and I have been left to try and lift the train back onto the tracks all by myself.

This is a good place to wish a slightly belated birthday to President Bill Clinton, who turned 71 on August 19th - yesterday to those of you who will be reading in the morning, either anonymously from Maylasia, or those of you who know me and read regularly but never acknowledge.

If you read regularly but never acknowledge, you know all about our friend President Clinton. For me, he is like the big brother I never had, but kinda do have. You guys know what I mean, even if you never acknowledge.

Well anyway - super tired. A fairly easy song tomorrow morn, with just a sixty second vocal line for Us Tenors (only two of us). But......it is ultra legato. Bel Canto style, meaning you have gotta sing it smoothly, with sustain and with volume (and emotion), but without belting it out. That's the hard part.

Lastly, I saw a post from the SB today, her first in a couple of weeks (at least that I have been able to see). SB, if you are reading, I saw a post about a friend who just had moved, like you, and who posted about the "chaos" of moving, and on top of which she had just gotten a puppy. I don't know if you meant that post for me (or if you just got a puppy yourself, which would be awesome), but if you did mean it for me to see, I got the message. If you want to re-establish the kind of communication we had before, I will be watching and I will be here. I still hope you are working on your music, and all of the things I have always hoped for for you, and everything is the same on my part. But I will leave it up to you beyond that, because I really need communication these days and the more direct the better.

See you in the morning (and those of you from Maylasia too, and those of you who are Psychic Vampires and who know me and read but never acknowledge).  //////

Grim + Don Airey + Grim Sleeper

No movie tonight. Instead, Grimsley came over, to pick up some Guns 'N Roses books I had ordered for him on Amazon, and also to bring me the new Alice Cooper album as part of his payment. We are both very big fans of Alice going way back to the early years. Grimsley just saw him live, too, as part of last week's mega triple bill at The Greek Theater that also featured Edgar Winter (who opened) and Deep Purple (who headlined). To my mind, you can't have Deep Purple without Ritchie Blackmore, but Grim had a good time and was blown away by their keyboardist Don Airey, who also has been around for a very long time. We saw him way back in 1979 when he was a part of Rainbow - with Ritchie Blackmore - and then we saw him again with Ozzy's band in 1981, and even got to hang out and talk with him a bit at the after-show New Year's Eve party that year. That was the party we snuck into, at the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown LA. We also met Randy Rhoads that night, and Ozzy, who was just beginning his relationship with Sharon, who looked a lot different back then.

The history of rock n' roll. But yeah, Don Airey was great back then, and Grim says he is even moreso today.

On an entirely different end of the spectrum, I just began reading a true crime book called "The Grim Sleeper" by a writer named Christine Pelisek, who used to work for the L.A. Weekly magazine. While on their staff, she was the first journalist in the city to pick up on the fuzzy (at the time) details of a possible serial murderer who was working in the already crime ridden areas of South Central Los Angeles. The cops, at the time, had not attached any significance to the case, as it happened to be in South Central - an almost all Black area. At best, they had put it on the back burner, but writer Pelisek, through her connection with the county Coroner, learned about it and began to write about what she had learned, thereby publicising it. It was she who nicknamed the apparent kiiler "The Grim Sleeper", and it was her relentless pushing of the story that caused the police to finally focus on it as a serial murder case. In past history, victims of serial murder have often been white, and the killer(s) white as well. But in this case the victims were all black women, and nobody in authority was paying as much heed. It is not fair or accurate to say that the cops didn't care, but because the killings happened in jaded, high crime South Central, the jaded police there wrote them off as just more of the same.

Christine Pelisek's stories in the LA Weekly, which I followed at the time beginning about ten years ago, wound up leading to the arrest of a man named Lonnie Franklin, who has since been convicted of "The Grim Sleeper" killings. He is a black man, making the case very rare, of a black serial killer with all black victims. Pelisek's angle wasn't so much race-based as it was about poverty. Not the poverty of the killer, who owned his own home and had a garbage collecting job with the city, but with the poverty and anonymity of the mostly faceless victims, most of whom were destitute.

In my younger years, from about age 17 to about age 40, I was an expert on serial killers. Not in the sense of an FBI profiler of course, but just through reading. In that time period I read every book I could get my hands on, about every crazed maniac who had been apprehended. I remember my sister Vickie, who is an awesome person and a great sister but who may not have had much insight into my interest in the subject, asking my Mom, "why does he read all that stuff"? She is very NewAge - or was, before the Age Of Trump, which has brought people back to the nitty-gritty - and at the time she equated my reading with a possible desire, on my part (in her mind) to be like the people I was reading about. That is the heart and soul of naivete.

I was reading about these people because I was fascinated by the Evil that people are capable of. I began my reading on this horrible subject when the book "Helter Skelter" was released, by Vincent Bugliosi, in 1977. Over the years I read up on every evil murderer from Lawrence Bittaker to Randy Craft to Son Of Sam to Ted Bundy, Jeffery Dahmer and a host of others. Every last one you can name, really.

 Right here in Northridge, on a street from my old paper route, is the final house that Richard Ramirez "The Night Stalker" ever broke into before he was caught. I drive by that house every single day on my way to Pearl's.

So, for whatever reason, this thing is in my system. I actually stopped reading books about serial killers after reading about BTK in 2005 or so. He was so awful (and memorialised in Steven Wilson's song "Index") that I swore off books on the subject. And I have not read one, nor been interested in reading, until "The Grim Sleeper" was recently published, and I think my interest was due to author Pelisek's relentless pursuit of the truth.

Grim says I should have been a Homicide detective, and I think I will be one in some future life.

As I've said many times, I really, really don't like it when Bad Guys - and especially Evil Guys - get away with their crimes. I have been a detective in my own life, and have thought that in some way it's a part of my calling.  /////

"A Yank In The RAF" + I Love Hollywood Movie Stars

Tonight's movie was called "A Yank In The RAF" (1941) starring the handsome Tyrone Power and Pin-Up Favorite Betty Grable. I just happened to find it on the shelf at Northridge Library this afternoon so I figured I'd give it a try. The reviews on IMDB indicated an "entertainment" film rather than a more serious WW2 battle story, and the reviewers were correct in their assessments. Ty Power is an American pilot who flies to Canada to volunteer for the British Royal Air Force (RAF). It is not well known in this country that, before America entered the war, the English were putting out offers to American civilian pilots to sign up for the RAF by going to Canada, a country of the British Commonwealth. The pay was very good (a G a week, huge bux in those days), and many US pilots wound up serving for England in that way.

Anyhow, the depiction of Power's enlistment is played in a light hearted manner, setting the style for the film, which is a pure Hollywood War Propaganda Piece. Not that that's a bad thing; this was WW2, unlike any war before or since, and soldiers were needed in droves. Hence the feel-good flow of the film, which - once Power is finished signing up - turns toward romance for almost the full first hour of it's 98 minute running time. The movie is mostly a light romantic "dramedy". Once Power gets to England he very quickly discovers that Grable, his recent girlfriend, is working Over There as a singer/dancer in a popular revue. No explanation is given as to why she is there, but hey! - that's Hollywood. This was propaganda to try and get American audiences to feel good about the idea of joining the war. The movie was released before Pearl Harbor.

At any rate, the first hour of the film is spent mostly on Power chasing Grable, against a rival British officer who is also vying for her affections. This might become tedious in a war film were it not for the two leads. Tyrone Power is a favorite of mine, he can turn on the charm like few others, and even as a Cad you can't help but like him. And having seen Betty Grable in a few movies now, she certainly had some talent to go with those famous legs. Her talent was mostly for light comedy, so she is perfectly cast here.

To cut to the chase, you finally get some WW2 action in the last 40 minutes of the film, with some pretty cool looking bombing runs over Berlin. And, the movie ends with a ten minute sequence having to do with the rescue at Dunkirk, which was so brilliantly depicted in Christopher Nolan's current film. It is well done here also, at least by 1940s cinematic standards.

All in all an enjoyable film, but not a profound one. Simply a picture to entertain and get the fighting spirit up and running in America, which had yet to join the war.

I always "IMDB" all the movies I watch, so I can look at the bios and film history of all the actors in each movie. I love all the old Hollywood Stars, but as I check out their bios, it is very often sad to find out that a great many of them did not live to an old age. Tyrone Power only lived to be 50, and Betty Grable only made it to 56. In the movie I watched last night, "Walk On The Wild Side", star Laurence Harvey only lived to 45, Anne Baxter to 62, and I already told you about Capucine.....

But you will see this in many of the casts of movies from Golden Era Hollywood, actors and actresses not making it much past their 60s, at the far end, and many not living past their 50s. Of course, smoking was huge then. Everybody smoked, and many smoked multiple packs a day. Steaks were The Main Course Of Choice also. No Sushi or veganism in those days. And everybody drank.....and drank.

Errol Flynn only made it to 50. As much as he drank, it's probably a wonder he made it that far. One of my very favorite actors is Montgomery Clift. He only made it to 46.

I could list a bunch more, and if I got into character actors, at least a couple hundred more. And those would be just the ones I've "IMDB"ed.

In the 40s through the 50s, they didn't last long in Hollywood. They died in what we would now consider early middle age.

But they gave their all on that screen. They always looked perfect. Does any star of today look half as good as Tyrone Power, or Betty Grable, or.........Capucine?

No they don't. A lot of excellent movies are made today, with some incredible actors, but......

they don't even approach the onscreen Mythos that was created by the Original Stars Of Hollywood.

The Stars who died mostly young (or at least did not make it to old age) but who are immortalised forever onscreen, looking (and acting) fantastic in movies both deep and.......well, not shallow really _ Hollywood in the 40s was incapable of Shallow - but made just for entertainment.

Such was "A Yank In The RAF", a movie for entertainment, made on the brink of the worst war in human history. I can see why they made such movies at that time, and it is probably much easier to enjoy it today than it was in 1941.  ////

"Walk On The Wild Side" & Capucine

I should probably just turn this blog into a nightly movie review. Tonight's film was "Walk On The Wild Side" (1962) starring Laurence Harvey (aka "The Manchurian Candidate" himself), a young Jane Fonda and the beautiful & tragic Capucine. As with a couple of other recent films, I had seen snippets on TCM here at Pearl's, and so I once again searched the annals of our fabulous Los Angeles City Library collection (rivaling Netflix) and found and ordered it.

The movie opens, rather strangely and suggestively, with a black cat prowling across the screen. As the credits appear, it winds it's way along until another cat approaches, and a very close up catfight is photographed. Very strange indeed, and symbolic of what is about to transpire. Remember that this is 1962, the tail end of the era of Tennessee Williams. Laurence Harvey is a drifter on his way out of the flatlands of Texas. He meets the wily and wiry Jane Fonda literally in a concrete pipe on the side of the road, where he has decided to rest for the night. She is covered in dirt, but resourceful. It turns out that both are headed for New Orleans, and so they hop a train to get there. Jane tries to put the make on Larry, but he is having none of it, for he is headed to Nawlins to search for Capucine, his true love, who has disappeared three years past.

From there, the plot develops and develops into A Potboiler Extraordinaire. An important subplot intervenes right away when the two, having jumped off the train, stop at a diner on the Edge Of Town, run by Mexican-American Senorita Ann Baxter, the heart and soul of sincerity and very Catholic to boot. Jane Fonda quickly becomes jealous of Baxter's attention to the handsome Harvey, so she ends up stealing from Ann Baxter. Laurence Harvey discovers her deception and they split up. He stays on with Baxter, working at her diner, and young Jane heads for The Big Easy and is not heard from again until near the end of the film.

The rest of the movie belongs to Capucine. If you ever want to see A Great Beauty, just Google her. She was also a very good actress. I have only seen her in Fellini's trashy "Satyricon" and this film, in which she gives an excellent performance. Laurence Harvey is searching for her, and - with the saintly Ann Baxter's help - he ultimately finds her. But he is slow to catch on to what her life has become. She is a sculptor, but she lives in a "hotel" run by the controlling Barbara Stanwyck (great as always, though Evil Personified this time). Laurence Harvey manages against all odds to rekindle his romance with Capucine, and arranges to marry her. And that is when the forces of Stanwyck break loose against him, for she considers herself to own the lady.

Capucine had been coerced, in her naivete and in her absence from Laurence, into working for Barbara Stanwyck, as a prostitute. This is the center of the film, and all the themes that surround it converge on this core. Harvey is a very religious and moral man - and yet (in a triumph of screenwriting that would seem heroic today) - he is portrayed as a True Follower Of Christ, one who believes in absolute forgiveness. Love conquers all, and so he is determined to rescue the captive Capucine from the clutches of Stanwyck and her henchmen, who include her Legless Husband (don't ask), and a Handful Of Thugs who keep Her Girls in line.

The year was 1962, and so the themes of Sin and Sex and Persecution and Redemption were all being set out into the open for the first time. This was a hard core script for those days. The movie was directed by the excellent Hollywood Craftsman Edward Dymytrk, who specialised in Noirs but could do any style. Filmed in stylish black and white, with a moving camera to accentuate the action.

For me, the movie is all about Capucine. I am not, or was not all that familiar with her, though something about her Singular Name rang a bell. Before watching the movie, I knew I'd heard her name before, and had possibly seen her in another film. It turns out she was in a few of the "Pink Panther" movies with Peter Sellers, but that's not why I remembered her. I guess it was because I had seen her in "Satyricon", which is a notorious film by Fellini but not a great one.

At any rate, she is fantastic in "Walk On The Wild Side", and she should be remembered for it, because it is a very good movie, even if melodramatic. It was a "truth telling" moralistic movie from the Era Of Drama, and it was firmly against the exploitation of women, or more accurately, the enslavement of women right here in America. The performance by Capucine captures her predicament in all it's hopeless detail. She is in a situation she cannot get out of, though her love for Laurence Harvey holds right up to the end.

I knew I had heard her name before, and after the movie ended I did some Googling. Then I saw where I had heard of her. It wasn't from Fellini, though I have seen "Satyricon". It was because Capucine, one of the most beautiful women you would ever see, committed suicide in 1990. She jumped out a window of her hotel at 62 years old.

The story in the movie somewhat reflected her real life story. Both were terribly sad.

But I think she should be remembered, simply for being so good in this film, which is ultimately about Love and Forgiveness.

That's all for tonight.

"The Bedford Incident"

Saw a really good movie tonight : "The Bedford Incident" (1965) starring Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier. I'd seen bits of it a few nights ago on Turner Classic Movies, watching here at Pearl's, and it looked intriguing, so I searched for it in the Library system and watched it in it's entirety tonight.
It is the story of a US Navy ship, a destroyer (The USS Bedford), that is following a suspicious Soviet submarine in waters up around Greenland. The captain of the Bedford (Widmark) is a hard-liner who is itching to push the sub into a position where he can legitimately force a confrontation. Sidney Poitier is an experienced, somewhat cynical journalist who has been approved by the United States Department Of Defense to be onboard during this dangerous exercise. He is writing a story for a major magazine, but his presence onboard and his questioning of the mission irritate Captain Widmark to no end.

Also on board, in a nice, authentic touch, is a former Commander of a German U-Boat, now conscripted into an alliance with his former enemies, the Americans, into a standoff against their mutual enemy The Soviet Union. This is a nice authentic touch because few movies - if any - have ever touched on the US alliance with Nazis after the war was over. We teamed up with them, or at least the Right Wing did, and now you can see how the partnerships have filtered down to the troubles we have in this country today.

But in the movie, the German Commodore actually becomes the voice of reason against the increasing aggression of the Captain, who is continually trying to raise the stakes against the Soviet sub, which we never actually see, except for it's periscope.

I was really enjoying this movie, having no idea what to expect. It was shot in black and white, with interiors on an actual Navy ship. You know I love that stuff. I got to tour battleships and aircraft carriers and subs as a six year old, and I have never forgotten the experience. So the movie takes place entirely on the ship, and there is a lot of plot, and tension as the captain pushes toward his desired confrontation with the Russian submarine. Sidney Poitier is great as always, as is a supporting cast that includes Wally Cox (of all people) and James McArthur (of "Book 'em, Dan-O" fame). Widmark gives one of his best performances in this film. He is like Barbara Stanwyck, a well-known but underrated actor, and when he is good he is really good, and here - as a captain stepping over his bounds - he is first rate.

If you are as big a fan of Submarine films as I am (and if you are not, I understand, lol) then you absolutely must see "The Bedford Incident". I said in the above paragraph that I was really enjoying this movie, and I was, but I was kind of wondering where it was going. We never see the Soviet submarine, and by the 70 minute mark (of a 100 minute film) I was wondering, really, what the film was actually about.

All I can say is that ultimately there is no doubt whatsoever what "The Bedford Incident" is about, and when it was over, I was blown away, simply by the choice of the director and the studio to make such a storytelling choice. This is not a well known film, and I can see why. But I think it is a very important film that, in light of current situations, is once again very timely.

Though it is a tad slow in some places (a minor complaint) and though you don't know at first what to make of all the changes in focus, on different characters and their story details, I still give "The Bedford Incident" five stars, for the performances of Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier and the entire supporting cast, and for the tension-building pace set by the director James B. Harris, who I had not heard of before. It's a must see, I think.  ////

That was all the news for today, as it was a Golden Agers Tuesday, and so you know the drill.

I have another TV Series I have started that I forgot to mention, another old Western series issued by Timeless Media. It's called "Tombstone Territory" and it ran from 1957 to 1960. Starred a guy named Pat Conway as the Sheriff of Tombstone, Arizona, who faced down various outlaws in 30 minute episodes each week. I had never heard of Conway, but he is perfect in the role, playing the kind of Straight Arrow Lawman that you never would see in this day and age. The series was rated highly on IMDB, and I heard about it from a recommendation on Amazon. The price was only 14 bucks for the complete series - 91 episodes - and so - needing another Western Fix - I placed my order.

I enjoy watching my movies and TV shows, and reading my books and doing all the things I do on a daily basis. But in the future - can't say when but it's coming - I am gonna push as hard as I possibly can to try and find out the truth about my life, and why the events of 1989 occurred.

In my reading, I heed the examples of people who have experienced extreme situations here in the United States Of America. And what we are seeing is that The United States Of America is absolutely not what it used to be.

And we are learning more and more everyday about the evil organisation known as the CIA, and the monster who was it's first director, Allen Dulles.

We need to learn all we can about people like Allen Dulles, so we can unravel the true history of American politics.

American politics is all about power, of course - ultimate power, as we are the most powerful country in world history.

But American Politics is also about Secrets. Because it is the Keeping Of Secrets that leads to power.

And my life being what it is, at some point it will behoove me to try and uncover the secrets that have affected my life, to a degree that I sometimes wonder what my life has been for.

But I know that I will eventually triumph, and have my story told to the whole world.

It's why I keep going. ////

SB + Aliso Spiders

Hi, Elizabeth. :) Just in case you are still reading this blog, I wanted to say that I saw your pics on FB this morning, and read the news about your brother, and even though I don't know him I just wanted to say congratulations. That is wonderful news for him, his fiancee, and for your family also. I normally would hit the "like" button for any photos you post, but in this case I felt it wasn't my place to do so. Those were very sweet pictures, though. Maybe you will be the wedding photographer too!  :)

I forgot to mention yesterday that I saw an FB post by you, I think it was on Saturday night. I've only seen about two or three posts in about a month, so I have just figured you are not around, but anyhow this post was via Drewsif and it had to do with computer upgrading and computer crashing. Here at the blog, I had mentioned not seeing the Macintosh anymore on my stats, so I thought that perhaps the Drewsif post meant that you are using a different computer now. At any rate, please know that I am still keeping an eye out for your posts, and "posts You like", which was our means of communication. I don't know if you want to communicate with me anymore, but if you do I am here. It's just that our communication had been precarious for a long time, and then the bottom fell out in June. That's why I stopped posting my nightly :):) songs on FB, and why I began to write this blog "to myself" (i.e. random incoherent thoughts, haha) instead of writing specifically to you. I would be glad to go back to the original way of doing things, but only if you want to. As you know, I am "tuned in" where communication is concerned, so if you want to reconnect, I will get the message. :)

No worries either way. I hope you are enjoying the adjustment of living on your own and being in the big city. I will bet it's quite exciting, even though new to you.  :)

I am just doing The Usual. Hey : it's what I do, lol. Somebody's gotta do The Usual, right? So for now, it's me. One day I hope to do The Unusual.......but in a good way.

Hmmmm, be careful Ad, about hoping for The Unusual.  :)

But you know what I mean. Just stuff that's Unusual For Me. Like going to Disneyland, and to Liverpool, and....to Disneyland Paris! Although I am not sure I would wanna do much traveling nowdays.

I hope The World gets better, and heals up. All I see is hotheads everywhere on the Internet. Everybody's got an opinion on everything; everybody is an expert on every subject. What a Kindergarten.

Your brother has the right idea. Find someone you love and get married. Make sure it's the right person of course. In his case no doubt it is. And then, lock things down. Focus on family, and love, and partnership, and sharing life, sharing soul, and everything that is good about life.

And here I must use bold type : Because - despite all the agitation going on - and despite Life On The Computer, where everyone's Id comes out to play, making life seem much more horrible than it is (and ironically, promoting more horribleness by continuing the endless confrontations), there is in fact Much More That Is Incredibly Beautiful And Magical About Life, than that which is horrible.

All anyone has to do is take that path, of beauty and wonder. Look at the Earth and Sky and the millions of components of thought and of Life.

End of Bold Typeface.

The Usual today was to read my current books, in between work hours, and to go for an Aliso Canyon walk at 3pm, which was undertaken for the purpose of Spider Web photography. August seems to be the month in which the eight-legged little guys do their best work. Aliso seems to be The Place, as far as spiders are concerned. I have checked other of my favorite places for webs, and have found few to none at Santa Su, Limekiln, O'Melveney and Whitney Canyon. I think it's because those places have too much sunlight coming in. Aliso, in it's most enchanting sections, is like a dark, ancient and dry forest. It's like Lord Of The Rings, as I've said, or something equally old. And the spiders seem to favor it, because of it's darkness. The oak trees blot out most of the sunlight.

I got some good Spider Web pics today, but I didn't post any yet because I only wanna post really goods ones, the ones that capture something supernatural, which - in combination - the Spiders and Their Webs and The Trees and The Old Forest are certainly attuned to. All you've gotta do is go into Aliso in August, when it hot and dark, and when you are the only one there. Then you can feel it.

You can feel Their World. The world of The Spiders. You can see it in their webs, and from a photographic standpoint, it is very interesting, because what you see and feel is much more than gossamer strands......

You see homes, you see villages. You see, in August at least, that This Is Their Place. You are in Spider Country. And they don't know of human chaos. And so you can tune into their world for a few minutes.

There are many "worlds" you can pay attention to, on Earth, besides what is going on in popular discussion. And when you do this, when you explore the world in large and small ways (and do so in past and present, as with old books and movies, for instance), you will be reinforced in your spirit and you will know that The Good far outweighs The Bad here on Earth. In fact, it's not even close.

I've said it a lot lately, but I'll say it once more for good measure :

Don't participate in Modern Groupthink. Don't follow The News. It is poison.

Follow what you know is good.  ///

Vulnerability

I re-read my blog from last night, and - Good Grief, Ad - in the future I will try to organise my thoughts in a more coherent manner if I am gonna write a long diatribe about a subject. I began the blog only wanting to give my opinion on the Michael Salla book, but then I got sidetracked by the news of all that Nazi stuff, and I got all worked up and went on a tangent. And so my thoughts on The Nordics and the contents of the book in general were never completed. Sorry about that.

What happens when I am writing a blog - if I have a lot I want to say - is that, because I write at a late hour and am often tired when writing, I then start trying to write as fast as I can, so that I will not forget, in my tiredness, all the things I want to convey. And the result is sometimes like what happened last night : in trying to get every last thought out of my head, I leave things unfinished. I may start on Nordics, or whatever, but then I switch to another subject and never finish my point on The Nordics.

And so it goes, on down the line, when I have A Bunch Of Things I Wanna Say, but am limited by factors of tiredness and time, the late night hour. I jumble things up and leave thoughts incomplete.

Sorry once again. I can write coherently (and last night's blog wasn't downright terrible) but I will try to slow down in the future, even if it means just sticking to one subject and writing a shorter blog.

Any-old-how...... :)

Good singing in church this morn. We had a song with a fair amount of difficulty, due mostly to the sheer number of syllables and the breath control needed to get through them. The song was called "Come Christians Join To Sing", and there is a lot of "going up and down the ladder" in harmony and counterpoint. A lot of drawn out "Alleluias" ala Handel. The pace was quick as well, so you had to be alert while singing it, but it came out pretty doggone good, I think.

The afternoon was spent beginning Yet Another Book : Book Two of Peter Levenda's "Sinister Forces" trilogy, with the subtitle "A Warm Gun". I have completed the first 25 pages. I feel like I am getting a crash course master's degree in occult studies, though I should definitely clarify that I am not into occult practices myself. No freaking way. But I study it because of my life's experience, and because of it's overall long term effect on the World. I study the subject of Evil and of it's Bad Guy Practitioners in the same way a police detective studies the clues left by a murderer. I study to know everything I can about what people do in this world that harms other people, and quite frankly because my life has been so affected by secrets, which are "things hidden", which translates to Occult.

And when you look into the history of power, religion and politics in America, the Occult is everywhere. And it is hidden. Levenda pulls it out of the shadows, for he has a formidable knowledge of the subject.

Finally, it should be noted that not all Occult practices are evil. White Witchery, for instance. That's the main one I can think of. I use a general term because I don't know if Wicca is specifically about white magic practiced by women, but anyhow.......you get the idea. One could say that astrology is a "lite" form of Occult, and it is certainly not evil. So I do believe in some Occult practices (and I'm a Tree Hugger and all that stuff) but the negative aspect I want no part of except to study and know about it.

I don't like That Which Is Hidden. I don't like Secret Groups, Secret Societies. I don't like Secrecy Oaths. I don't like Non-Disclosure Oaths.

What I do like is Truth and Openness.

I believe very strongly in Vulnerability. Vulnerability means laying yourself out there; letting things out of your system, even if doing so makes you nervous or afraid.

A good way to practice vulnerability is to be vulnerable to yourself before you try it out on anyone else.

If you are harboring things - feelings, secrets, or burdens of any kind inside you - what you can do is to Acknowledge These Things To Yourself. Make Yourself Vulnerable To Yourself. Tell Yourself The Truth About The Things You Are Feeling or Harboring. As you do this, and practice this, you will become more confident in your emotions. You will come to know that it is okay to feel, or to think, whatever you may be thinking or feeling (and of course we are not talking about psychopaths here, so don't get technical on me). I am talking about the "normal" range of emotions, and thoughts, which are in fact a very wide range indeed. They comprise basically any thought of feeling that does not involve hurting anyone, including yourself.

Express yourself, to yourself. Learn to be vulnerable, and eventually you will really open yourself up emotionally.

Do not repress things too deeply. 

I do not mean that you should Over Emote, and have an Outburst At Every Little Thing. That idea has caused much of the societal problem we find ourselves in. So, a little bit of repression is good.

Knowing nuance is the key, as always.

But in the deepest most personal sense, practice vulnerability. Open yourself up to the world and to it's blessings, which are everywhere, every day. To do this, be quiet and go inside yourself for a few minutes. Look around, as I have suggested. "Look Up".

Let things you are feeling be expressed. But only in words. Words, used properly and spoken, either to yourself or others, can go a long way to solving any problem.

And to relieving the World of kept secrets. ///// 

Way Out There : The Salla Book and Me Too

I finished the Michael Salla book today. I'll run that title by ya once again : "The US Navy's Secret Space Program and Nordic Extraterrestrial Alliance". It started off very promising, with all kinds of documented info on the "Battle Of Los Angeles" UFO experience in 1942, and on the career of Leslie Stevens Jr., the creator of "The Outer Limits" tv show. Salla presented info on San Diego Naval Air Station and China Lake that - for me especially - was near mind boggling. He talked about Douglas Aircraft and their headquarters at Santa Monica Airport, and how a highly classified project at Douglas evolved into the well-known RAND Corporation. This was all stuff I'd never heard before (and I've heard it all, or so I thought) and Salla connected the dots between all of the above mentioned people, places and experiences. He did this via the story of a man named William Tompkins, who is now 94.

At first, Mr. Tompkins' life story is very intruiging, even though one may have to suspend disbelief at the idea of Nordic Extraterrestrials. I myself have no problem suspending such disbelief, because hey : for one thing - and we've been through this a bunch of times - there are a zillion stars and planets out there. For another thing, you'd have to truly suspend disbelief to believe that, out of all those zillions of planets, that only Earth has intelligent life. To be blunt (and sorry for being blunt), you'd have to be a Nitwit to think that only one planet in a zillion has people on it, whatever those people may look like.

And therein lies the problem with the so-called Nordics. They are said to be Aliens who look like really good looking Swedish People. And, they have a slightly different air about them, a different vibe, that makes them seem a little different from humans. I won't go into it any further than that, but : Okay fine.

I can believe that whoever the Other People are who are Certainly Out There, that some of them may have a Human Resemblance. I mean, must they all be three feet tall with grey skin, no clothes (or very shiny clothes), and oversized heads with wraparound sunglasses for eyes?  Of course not.

I mean, we have Humans on this planet. So why could there not be some similar looking beings on another planet? It does not make logical sense to assume there could not be such people.

So, in getting back to Salla, I can accept Nordics. I can certainly accept UFOs; thousands of people have reported seeing them, there is photographic and video evidence (however flimsy or strong), and there is Just No Way that Nobody Has Ever Seen A UFO, or that All The Millions Of Reports Since The 1940s Are All Wrong. Logic again says that at least one UFO sighting has been the real thing.

At least one, and obviously many more. We have flying machines that are pretty sophisticated. If a pygmy living in the middle of nowhere saw a Stealth, or a Drone, he would consider it a UFO. He would not be able to identify it, and it would freak him out. And so we are the same with flying machines that are beyond what we are used to. We have seen the Stealth, we have seen Drones, but most of us have never seen back-and-forth flying in a line at incredible speed, stopping on a dime, turns of 90 degrees, or hyperspeed acceleration where if you blink the thing is gone. Many thousands of witnesses all over the world have reported these things, and many of the witnesses have been military pilots, so I think it's safe to say that the UFO phenomenon is real.

It should be Topic #1 on every nightly news show, in every newspaper, every day.

The phenomenon of the UFO Problem.

Not because of Little Green Men, and all the sci-fi imagery that goes with it (and all the ridicule for anyone who mentions it), but because of the Obvious Implications Of The Obvious UFO Problem, which ties in with what various authors, like Michael Salla, have been writing about in recent years : The Secret Space Program.

The Secret Space Program is real. I cannot prove this, of course, but having read extensively on the subject for almost a decade, I am certain it exists. And it exists because the higher-ups in the military (some of them anyway) have known about the reality of the UFO Problem since the 1940s. On this point all the authors agree. We go into space commercially, for public consumption - in order to "explore and inspire", to say to the world, "here we go! We've never done this before, let's see what we can find! Isn't it amazing"?

But meanwhile, in secret, the military (or elements thereof) have been taking their own voyages into space, with higher technology craft (not based on thrust), and they have long since known about What Is Out There : i.e. artifacts on The Moon and Mars. Obvious remnants of - if not civilisations having lived there - then at least visitations, and in the case of Mars, monuments built.

That's why this stuff should be the #1 Topic Of Discussion, day in and day out, on The News and in The Papers, until we get to the bottom of it. Because the humongous amount of evidence shows that the situation is real. And if we investigate it, and investigate to it's conclusion (which might take a couple decades), then we will know more about What Has Come Before Us, and more importantly - Who We Are.

As you know, that has long been one of my most considered questions in my own life:

"Just what are Humans, anyway"? For real, and no joke. Look at the big picture and ask yourself.

But we have instead this Huge Bummer On Earth, where people are provoked - by the so-called News - to focus on their so-called "ideology". Most people do not have an ideology, nor would they know what it means. I do know what ideology means, and even I do not have an ideology.

An Ideology means that any given person who perceives that they have one, believes that their Personal Ideas About Society Are The Only True Answers For Society.

I repeat: most people, 99.99999%, do not have an ideology. I don't have one myself, and I am very well read and informed.

But what happens is that Ill Informed People are manipulated By The Evil Media, into choosing an ideology, based on their emotional state and the culture they are surrounded by.

Thus we have white trash so-called Nazis (whom real German Nazis would have despised) driving cars into emotionally forlorn Leftists, who only know how to react, instead of how to just let the opposing emotion peter out, which it will because it requires opposition to give it force.

This is what is happening on Planet Earth, in the country called America, which is currently the most powerful country on Earth. And it is happening because of manipulation.

People are easy to manipulate. Especially if they are not well read (different from "well educated", which is a bunch of bullshit). And so, instead of focusing on what should be the #1 issue - i.e Who Is Out There In The Universe and What Are We To Do About This Situation - we are instead regressed, by the manipulative media, which encourages the ill-informed and emotionally troubled to react to The News. And we remain at the level of childhood, in far more destructive adult bodies.

I was gonna say that Michael Salla's book becomes ridiculous, after starting out so promising, and that is because of a hoaxer named Corey Goode. Two hoaxers actually, the other one is a guy named David Wilcock. You can Google them is you wish - and I know that you do not wish to. Most people just wanna live their life, and get through their day. I can certainly understand that.

But folks, I am gonna tell you what you already know : life is much bigger than this materialism we chase after and these human bodies we live in. Of course it is important to live a regular human life, and to enjoy what we are presented with here.

But we have descended down into the snake pit now, after rising so high just a few decades ago.

To get back to what the subject was at the beginning of this blog, I can believe that there are "Nordics". I have never seen one that I know of, but that's not the point.

The point is that I believe in Humans, and I believe in Earth, and those beliefs are because I believe in Jesus Christ, and God.

At some point, you - every human being - has to ask him or herself - "who brought matter into existence? Who created something out of nothing"?

It wasn't Nordics, and it wasn't Humans.

It certainly wasn't Satan or any evil incarnation. He can only destroy, he cannot create.

Look at the Mountains, The Ocean and The Sky.

You don't have to think religiously, but you can if you feel it.

But ask yourself, how did those things get there?

Mountains. Oceans, Sky.

Look up, and outward. You know there are other people out there too, whatever they may look like.

It should be the #1 Story In The News, all day every day.

Please do not participate in what they do promote instead, which is conflict and stupidity.

Thanks, and sorry for the tangents and the failure to carry through with what I started to write about the Salla book. I only wanted to say that the second half is hogwash, with all the Corey Goode claptrap, a bunch of Battlestar Galactica nonsense. ///// 

Aliso Webs + Watermelon + "The Young Philadelphians"

Not much to report today as usual. Just gotta wing it, cause I have to write something. I did have a nice leisurely stroll through Aliso Canyon this afternoon, specifically looking for spider webs to photograph. It was 95 degrees, not quite hot enough for my liking but enough to keep the crowd away, so I had the place to myself. Found a few good webs, too, one of which I posted on Facebook. I haven't seen any of the monster-sized webs like I found last Summer, however, the ones that had vortex funnels in the center that led to holes in the ground. Those were made by big 'ol black spiders, even bigger than a Black Widow, and I know this because I got a pic of one who just happened to be Out For A Walk on his web, and who scurried back into his hole in the ground right after I took the pic. You can see it in my 2016 photo album on FB.

Got a really good watermelon at Super King. Dontcha love it when you pick a good one? The last one I got at Trader Joe's was supposed to be seedless but had a ton of little black seeds. Now, I don't mind seeds because a watermelon with seeds brings back memories of being a kid, and eating a slice of melon out in the backyard - isolating the seeds in your mouth and spitting them out. It was a hassle, but the memory of it makes it tolerable to get some seeds in your watermelon, though the Age Of Seedless has been with us for decades now. But I don't have a backyard anymore, and I don't wanna spit seeds into the sink or the trash can. It's only fun if it's Out Back. But anyway, I was glad to get the very sweet and 100% seedless watermelon today. I already ate about a third of it.  :)

Speaking of backyards, here at Pearl's I am literally cattycorner to the backyard of the home I was born into (when I came home from the hospital of course), and where I lived until I was 7 years and 8 months old. This tract was known as Meadowlark Park when it was new, and the homes were all designed by an architect named Edward Fickett. You can Google him if you wish, to see the designs of his houses. They are in the style of what has come to be known as Mid Century Modern. Dad bought a cool looking one on Hatton Street in 1953 for 13,000 bucks. Yep, you read that right. And Pearl and her husband Roy bought one just south of ours - cattycorner south - that same year. And here I am, almost 65 years later, writing to you from the living room of that house - Pearl's house - and close by the backyard where I first ate watermelon as a kid, and spit out the seeds. I can hear Dad's voice now, as he is handing me the slice - "Take it out in the backyard". That's the kind of memory that rules.  :)

This is how Winging It works, when you have nothing to report on a particular day. You just pick up on any mundane thing you may have done, such as buying a watermelon and then extrapolate on it.

Dad was not a Watermelon Guy himself. He preferred cantaloupes or Crenshaw melons.

Tonight I watched a movie called "The Young Philadephians" (1959), starring Paul Newman, Barbara Rush and Robert Vaughn. Man, what a great movie! I suppose you would call it a Saga, as it encompasses years of Newman's life - really his whole life - from his birth to a Woman Of Society, to his rise through law school and emergence in a prominent firm, where he makes an immediate impression. But this is not exactly what the film is about. To tell you what is about would take more energy than I have at present - the story, like the road of life, is long and varied, with many twists and turns. The main thrusts are twofold : Status (and by extension Social Stature, slightly different from Status) and Love. Those two forces power the story. Newman, as he enters law school, has a girl he loves (Barbara Rush). They are ready to elope, and are gonna do it that very night. But of course the screenwriter intervenes and has Barbara's Dad talk Newman into postponing the marriage. He is a lawyer from a high powered firm, and he offers Paul a position, if he will finish school and defer marrying his daughter. Paul Newman, being ambitious, agrees to this, though in his heart he is crushed. The daughter, Barbara Rush, is despondent at the news. She runs away to Europe and ends up marrying someone else, a Society Lad who is a friend of the family. She does not love him, but everything looks good For Appearances Sake. Thus she and Paul go separate ways, for a while.

Now, so much happens after that, that I have gotta just give a few snippets or I will be here all night. This is an Epic, remember. A Saga.

Newman has a Best Friend - Robert Vaughn, in an outstanding performance - who is also a Scion Of High Society but who is an alcoholic. He has his reasons for being so, which will unfold the plot later on. Both of them wind up in Korea, fighting in the war.

I freaked out when the movie threw this curveball at me, due to The Current World Situation. I won't waste time commenting about the incredibly stupid and dangerous remarks of The Nutjob In Chief, but anyway - in the movie - there they were in Korea. Out of the blue. Such are the plot twists in this film. Another has him Almost Falling For The Young Wife of his Elderly Boss. That theme is short lived, however, and only serves to demonstrate Newman's desire for a real relationship rather than a fling.

The major curveball of the movie is that the last 40 minutes are spent as a Whodunit, in a nail biting Murder Trial. Holy Smokes, this movie is all over the map! But it's great. It runs for 2hrs 16 minutes, and you know that I prefer shorter films, but this one didn't lag for a second.

You know how I often go on Tirades about how great the screenwriters were, in those days, to be able to Pack As Much Story as they often do into a 90 minute film? Well, you can triple that for "The Young Philadelphians". Though it is, at times, a bit soap opera-ish, it has enough story for a modern miniseries, with many surprises. And through it all, the Two Themes hold : Ambition vs. Love. And the secrets of High Society, the skeletons in the closets of the wealthy families.

Paul Newman was young here, just 34 (and looking younger), and he wasn't as great as he would become, but the flashes are there, and he is very good for the most part.

Because of the length, and the melodrama, I could not watch a whole bunch of these types of films in a row, as I can with 90 minute Noirs or Westerns, but for a Once In A While viewing, this movie (in black and white!) is a Must See, and therefore I give it five stars. An Epic where you truly don't know what is gonna happen next, except for the fact that I just told you. :)

So, that's all the news for today. Spider Webs, Watermelon & Paul Newman.

Google Edward Fickett, too, if you get the chance. /////