No movie tonight, cause Grimsley came over. He didn't bring any comedy shows with him this time, we just hung out and talked about the Utopia concert and other newsworthy topics (um, er....Trump) and he accompanied me on my CSUN walk. Earlier in the evening, when I got home at 6:30, I finished "Double Standards", the book about Rudolf Hess that I've been reading since March. It turned out to be one hell of a story, and one so important that I think the whole world should know about it, and some day maybe that will happen. Hess was of course Hitler's deputy, and in 1941, with WW2 raging, he suddenly flew to Scotland by himself, supposedly on a mission of peace, to arrange a treaty between Germany and England. But upon crash landing in Scotland, he was soon captured by Home Guard soldiers and his peace mission was foiled. He was held in England until war's end in 1945, when he was tried along with other Nazis at the Nuremburg Trials in Germany. There, he was sentenced to life imprisonment at Spandau Prison, a place that became famous in the 1980s because elderly Rudolf Hess was by then the only prisoner left inside the building. When he died there, in 1987 at age 93, it was said that he committed suicide.
The book "Double Standards" by Lynn Picknett, argues otherwise and also proposes a great deal of subterfuge during the British captivity of Hess, who - had his peace mission been successful - might have considerably shortened the war and altered the course of post-war history. I was led to this authoritative book on the Hess matter by Dr. Joseph Farrell's book "Hess and The Penguins", which cited the Picknett book as the last word on the case. It took a while to read, but it was a mindblower. Supposedly the goal of the Hess peace mission was to side with a faction in England that wanted to oust Churchill, who was hell bent on war with Germany. In return, the English peace group, headed up by members of the Royal Family, expected Hess to help depose Hitler back in Germany, where a German peace group of similar high stature was said to be waiting.
But Hess was captured, his mission was unsuccessful, and Hitler and Churchill had their war.
Hess was not a Saint; he was still a Nazi, albiet a far more moderate one than Hitler, Himmler et al, and he had a lot of influence because he was #2 in the hierarchy, right behind Hitler. The book proposes that had his mission been a success, the Holocaust might never have happened.
I know that not everyone is a WW2 history buff, but still, this is a very important story, because so much of what is true gets covered up in the world - the reporting of things that actually happened, and the way they happened and the reason they happened.
In the reporting of very important events, the truth gets covered up or twisted, as we see now on a daily basis.
This is why books like "Double Standards" matter, and why the truth should never just be lied about and then paved over and forgotten. ////
Getting back to the nightly subject of movies, while I did not watch one tonight, we did see something movie related last evening right here in Reseda, and in fact right down at the end of the block on Pearl's little residential street. The city had put up temporary "no parking" signs a few days ago that would become applicable on Wednesday (yesterday). On my day off last weekend, I had seen movie trucks in the neighborhood, so I thought "maybe they are coming back". You often see "no parking" signs put up in advance of a shoot, so that the movie crew will be able to use the street themselves. So, yesterday, when I came back to Pearl's at 4:30 for my evening shift, there was now a "road closed" sign in the street at the corner, right in front of her house. I was able to park, but I saw a bunch of trucks at the end of the street and a couple of semis that I knew were movie business. So I put Pearl into her wheelchair and we went for a walk, down her street to the end of the block.
When we got there, we saw equipment set up in people's driveways, lighting rigs, tents, all kinds of stuff. We saw a camera on a dolly. The logo on the doors of the 18 Wheelers said "NBC Universal", so it was a big deal. I pushed Pearl a little further up the street. We saw some residents on the sidewalk who were watching the proceedings, and then I saw a guy with a telltale walkie-talkie standing on the sidewalk. I knew he was with the crew, and I asked him "what are they shooting"?
He said "it's a TV show called 'Homecoming' ".
So after Pearl and I finished our walk through the 'hood, I Googled "Homecoming TV Show NBC".
And it came back that it's a new show, coming up for the Fall, like an extended mini-series. It is being financed by Amazon Studios, and all of that stuff is new to me. Amazon has the money, but they still need the real life Universal NBC equipment to make their show. I also don't know anything about this new paradigm of watching shows on a computer.
But forget that stuff. It was just really cool to see all the Universal Studios trucks on our little street.
Maybe they were here because a location manager knew about the Fickett houses in this tract. We were talking about architecture last night, and Mr. Edward Fickett was one of the great designers of mid-century modern housing.
When I Googled "Homecoming" and NBC, I also discovered that Julia Roberts is going to be the star of the show. I don't know if she was there last night, but it was cool to find this out, and it will be fun to watch the show - on computer or tv or however you watch modern shows - when it comes out in the Fall.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxooxxoxoxoxo :):)
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