June 5, 2024

 Monday night I went with Grimsley to The Whisky to see a Van Halen tribute band called Fair Warning. Grim was on the guest list so we got in free, and they were really good. The band members were probably close to my age, the singer mentioned attending the US Festival and walking out on VH, which made me think we should've done the same thing; they gave a notoriously bad performance. Fair Warning played for 45 minutes, so it was a quick trip, just in and out of the club, then back to the Valley. Grim is a big fan of tribute bands, and I go with him once in a while (especially when it's free). We also saw Fan Halen about 18 months ago (for free) in a Calabasas park, and the Rush tribute band Natural Science in April at Harley's Bowling Alley in Simi Valley. One of the best I've seen was The Surf City All Stars, made up of surf music vets who played with Jan and Dean and The Beach Boys. For me it started with Ticket to Ride about 15 years ago. I've seen them at least a dozen times, mostly at the Our Lady of Lourdes Fall Festival every October. They do a great version of The Beatles.

Continuing our informal Montgomery Clift retrospective, on Saturday I watched "The Misfits"(1961), also in honor of Marilyn Monroe's birthday. It was her last movie, as well as Clark Gable's. Both are great in it, as is Monty, who doesn't appear until the 50 minute mark. Eli Wallach makes up the fourth member of their party of disaffected souls who feel out of place in modern society. It's Marilyn's movie, and though she does her Marilyn thing (smiling, breathy little girl voice), she was a better actress than given credit for. She has to hold her own with three powerhouse actors here, including Gable, and also Thelma Ritter who plays her landlady. They meet Wallach, an ex-WW2 bomber pilot now working as a tow truck driver, in the opening scene. The story is set in Reno Nevada, where Marilyn has come for a divorce from Kevin McCarthy (who has only two minutes of screen time). Wallach sees in her a kindred spirit, and - looking for companionship - suggests she and Ritter stick around in Reno, even offers them the use of his partially-completed house in the desert. Ritter talks Marilyn into staying, and Wallach introduces them to his pal Gable, a womanizing cowboy who'll do anything to avoid working. He has a saying: "it's better than wages", meaning that the vagabond life is better than being tied down. Gable asks Wallach what the hell he's doing working as a tow truck driver: "Succumbing to wages, eh?" Wallach regains his senses and quits. The middle of the movie is the four of them getting drunk in bars and at Wallach's house, and having existential and confessional conversations courtesy of Arthur Miller, who wrote the screenplay. Marilyn falls in love with Gable, though Eli Wallach was hoping she'd fall in love with him, but she sees right though his woebegone WW2 spiel. They pick up Monty a little less than halfway through, then the Thelma Ritter character disappears, written out of the remainder of the film for reasons unexplained. Monty is a rodeo rider, inured to physical pain, but attuned to Marilyn's emotional sensibility. She sees Gable killing rabbits and has a visceral reaction, wanting to save every living thing, including Monty, Gable and the wild Mustang horses they eventually hunt down with the unfair advantage of Wallach's airplane and Gable's truck. The Mustangs are the real "misfits" of the film. Modern civilization has encroached on their open space and turned them into dog food. The movie is about the difficulty of "just living" (as Gable puts it) in a world of systems, and ironically, Gable is taking away the horses' freedom to preserve his own. Marilyn and Monty show him that a compromise is possible. Monty is not the main star, but once he gets onscreen he's great as always. He only made 18 movies, but all his performances are unique. Clark Gable looks fried for 59 years old, but the thing is, he looks like what a 59 year old man once looked like, when men smoked, drank heavily, and ate steak at every meal. He died of a heart attack shortly after finishing this film, and the movie may have finished him off, if the stories are true about Marilyn's unprofessional behavior on set. Also, he has some horse wrangling scenes that must've been pretty rugged. John Huston was a notoriously macho director, and the horse scenes would never be allowed today. Anyhow, "The Misfits" is a classic, if a bit meandering in the early going. It makes its points and becomes more focused after the first hour, and could've been 15 to 20 minutes shorter, but it still gets five stars, because of the tremendous script, direction, and acting. 

I've been listening to Starcastle, the Illinois progressive rock band who were regionally popular in the late 1970s. Their first three albums are really good. I remember Pat (it's always Pat) playing me the first album, probably at his house because he didn't work at College Records by 1976, and we both thought it was okay, but almost entirely derivative of Yes. And I never listened to Starcastle again until this week. The Yes comparison still stands (listen for yourself), but you know what? It doesn't matter now. This is just good music. The second album is killer. It's like having more good Yes albums than there already are. I highly recommend Starcastle. 

I also re-visited Crack the Sky's "Safety in Numbers"(1978), and remembered about half of it, even though I only heard it a few times, 40 to 45 years ago. Must be the Pat influence again. Everybody bagged on Starcastle because of the Yes factor, but the prog nerds at Cleveland High School conversely seemed to like Crack the Sky. We should've liked them, too, at least a lot more than we did, which was practically not at all. Their much-lauded debut album sort of went in one ear and out the other because they were from Pittsburgh, and we were into the English progressive bands. But that alone doesn't explain it, because we liked FM's "Black Noise" (featuring the all-time earworm classic "Phasors on Stun") and they were from Canada. I can't say exactly why we didn't go for Crack the Sky, but it can't be the American factor alone. After all, we liked the first Kansas album, and also Happy the Man, who were interesting but didn't have the songwriting chops of Crack the Sky or Starcastle. Anyhow, give the first three albums by each those two bands a listen. Both have some great stuff waiting to be rediscovered, and while you're at it, revisit the catalogue of FM, also. A fantastic band who had more than just one great album and one classic song. Remember Nash the Slash? There's some live footage of him and FM mastermind Cameron Hawkins on Youtube, from a Canadian TV show in 1976. I saw FM open for Rush in 1981 and they blew the crowd away. 

More music: I am also recently listening to Belly. Tanya Donelly is my new favorite singer. And, she can write songs too. Her voice reminds me (a little bit) of Leigh Nash from Sixpence None the Richer. Did you guys like Belly and/or Sixpence? I loved all that music from the '90s, all that sweet-voiced Girl Pop. Nice music for nice times. The '90s was a positive, creative era, like the 1960s without the turmoil. I mean, no decade can match the '60s, but the '90s was a feelgood decade, and the Girl Music reflects that. And boy, could those '90s girls write songs and sing. Boy could they sing. Alanis, Joan Osborne, Paula Cole. I know I "dissed" Peter Gabriel recently, but check out the live footage of an 80s or 90s PG tour with Paula Cole singing duets. Holy smokes what a voice. My favorites, though, were Tanya Donelly and Leigh Nash. And Miki and Emma from Lush. I loved the music of the 1990s. I wish I could replay that entire decade.

Let's do a quick list of great albums from the '90s, one per band: "Superunknown" by Soungarden, "Ten" by Pearl Jam, "Dear 23" by The Posies, "Jar of Flies" by Alice in Chains, "Spooky" by Lush, "Star" by Belly, "Sixpence None the Richer" by Sixpence, "Core" by Stone Temple Pilots (who I initially thought were posers but later came to appreciate). I also admit to liking Hootie and the Blowfish. Darius Rucker had the all-time '90s "growler" voice, even out-growling Eddie Vedder. '90s music came from the heart, and there was so much variety. And like the '60s, there were also a lot of One Hit Wonders, like Blind Melon. How great was "No Rain", a classic '90s tune. Or how about The Gin Blossoms? They had some great songs, too. I find that going back to a certain musical era provides me with a Time Machine in which I can re-experience the feeling of that period, and there were few better eras than the mid-1990s, when Bill Clinton was President, Al Gore was Vice President, Hillary was First Lady, and the vibe in the country was optimistic. Let's list some more great '90s albums: "OK Computer" by Radiohead, "Gish" by Smashing Pumpkins, "Everyone Else is Doing It, So Why Can't We" by The Cranberries (R.I.P Dolores). I even liked some of the pop-punk songs by bands like Green Day, or Long Beach punk like The Offspring and Sublime. It blows me off the map that all of this music is 30 years old, because the '90s feel like yesterday. That decade is beyond special to me, since that is when I got my memory back. When it happened, I felt On the Verge of some Great Unknown Thing, like a promise was about to unfold. It didn't quite happen the way I hoped, and I'm still waiting 30 years later, but I've never stopped believing in that promise, or trying to make it come true.

Though I've had great times with great people since the 1990s (especially living with my Mom and caring for Pearl) I have no nostalgia for the culture of any decade since the turn of the millennium. We've just been in a holding pattern since then, living in a post-9/11 Gadget Culture 24/7 world, and who would be nostalgic for that? You can't even separate it into decades anymore, it's just one big miasmic electronic mess. The 90s were the last decade of from-the-heart American culture. Now we are on the road to.......endsville, and that is entirely because of secrecy. But at least we still have music to enjoy. I listen to opera every night. I watched part of a Gentle Giant concert today. We may need to go down the tubes so we can start over from scratch. Bad people have stormed the threshold over the past thirty years, and it's all about what happened in 1989. That's why What Happened is the most Top Secret secret of all.

As for the recent Trump verdict, there's not much I can add that hasn't been said already. When I saw (on Yahoo) that the verdict was about to be announced, I found myself tuning into MSNBC for the first time in almost three years. Pearl and I used to watch them every night in the Mueller days, and we quite liked Lawrence O'Donnell and Chris Hayes. Nowdays, I'm the rightest-wing man in America, but I am also the #1 Anti-Trumper, a title I've held since he announced in 2015. And despite being right wing, I'm not Republican, and I'm not because they continue to back this jerk. Rachel Maddow had some good questions about that support, saying that a felony conviction is enough to get you disqualified on almost any job application, or fired from almost any job. So why are the Republicans still backing Trump? Have they literally got no one else? I thought Mike Johnson, at least, would've made an overture about moving on, but alas, it didn't happen. 

The way it looks now, neither the Fani Willis or Jack Smith trials will begin before the election, and if Trump wins they won't happen. The only thing that can stop him is if Biden can get a big victory somewhere, like gas prices going way down or inflation suddenly dropping. But neither of those things is likely. The wild card is the sentencing in the case that just concluded. I see no way Judge Marchan will let Trump walk. He may not send him to prison, but he'll at least get home confinement, which means he won't be able to campaign. But the thing is, he'll just do TV appearances from home. Nothing is gonna stop this guy, except maybe going to jail, and from what all the pundits have said, you can be President in a jail cell. The only other possible wild card is RFK Jr taking away enough votes, but because Trump hasn't flinched, I just don't see Biden winning unless he gets a "big issue" victory between now and November. The Woke Folks really messed things up, took things so far to the left that we now have a backlash, and on top of that, no one can afford food and gas. All Biden and company had to do was not screw things up worse than Trump already had by 2021, but they couldn't even reverse anything he did (or didn't do) because Biden was in no condition to lead, and The Woke Folks took over. Trump came back this time with an ultra-focused message (he's not stupid like we once thought), and he just keeps repeating that message and his fans (who make up half the country) are gonna sink or swim with him, as is the entire Republican Party. So are you a-Woke yet, or do you need a Woke Up call?

Well anyhow, we can't win anyway, even if Biden wins, so go fly a kite. And if Trump wins, don't react. Don't do the rebellious far-left thing. Instead, let him do his thing, and in four years he'll be gone. The media will ride his ass the whole time he's in office. They'll impeach him a third and fourth time, so let him do his thing, let the media do their thing, and watch the sideshow and don't freak out. Let Trump win. At least gas and food prices will go down, you can bet on it. Don't side with the anarchists. Don't support Woke. They are what caused Trump. Calling everyone a racist caused Trump. The Far Left caused Trump, because they wanted communism even though they denouced Russia because their commentators told them to do so. And even though they never lived under communism, they thought it was better, because they see themselves as the mass proletariat. They don't see themselves as separate individuals. They see themselves as We or Us. That is always a dangerous way to see things. I wish everyone on the Far Left would go live in middle America, and see where those folks are coming from, and why they would choose (and continue to support) a convicted criminal for President. It's because of the way they see the aggressive, far left Woke.

Well, anyhow, I'll shut up. I hate politics.

I found a great new obscure TV series. It's not currently new, just new in the discovery sense. It's called "Way Out", and it only aired for 14 episodes in 1961, in the time slot right before Twilight Zone. I know this because someone uploaded all the episodes to Youtube, in full, complete with breezy L&M cigarette commercials (some featuring The Limelighters), and there are also a couple of voiceovers as the end credits roll, from Rod Serling, telling you to stay tuned for T-Zone. The host of Way Out (which for some reason is titled 'Way Out, with a leading apostrophe onscreen) is Roald Dahl, and you even get to learn how his name is pronounced. Like me, you always thought it was "Row-ald", or simply "Rolled", but the announcer pronounces it "ROO-all-d". "And now, here's the host of 'Way Out, ROO-all-d Doll." And he's very droll, giving a macabre intro to each episode while smoking a cig (an L&M, no doubt). You'd never guess he was the same guy who wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The shows themselves are very well done, mostly with Broadway actors, and the ones I've seen so far should not be watched with the lights out. Very scary stuff. Don't miss 'Way Out! Man, we've been on a roll with new discoveries of late.

Finally, since you've been with me on my journey of Adventures in Self Publishing, I'll report that yesterday I began using Microsoft Word, for the final "typesetting" of my book, and it appears to be not too different from Google Docs, with the important exception that I am able to "customize" my page size, which is critical because my book is going to be 6 x 9 (US Trade) and there are only a few limited page size options on Google Docs, which is used mostly for online applications (office-sized material). Other than that, it's similar to Word, but what I found today on Word, with my new 6 x 9 page template, is that it's hard to get more than 350 words per page without using a very small font (below 10 point). Even 10 point font is pretty small, but still very readable. Any super-long book you've read in paperback likely had 10 point font. I've been using my paperback copy of "The Stand" for comparison. SK appears to have used 10 point (maybe 9) because he's working with half a million words (1200 pages at apprx. 400-450 words per page). My book is long (157K words, a little less than 1/3 the length of "The Stand"), so I need to be able to get a minimum of 350 words per page in a 6 by 9 format, to pull the book in at less than 500 pages. I was hoping for 400 words per page, because then I'd have a 383 page book, which would be much more cost effective. But I also won't go below 10 point font because then you're talking eye strain for readers. 10 is small to begin with. 12 is ideal for shorter books, and 11 would be ideal for us, but I can't have a 525 page book that costs 29.50 to print, cause then I'd have to charge 30 bucks for hardcover, which is a lot, and I'd only make fifty cents per sale, and while money is not the object for this first effort (the object is to make a first impression), 30 bucks is still too much. I don't even want to have to charge 25, but that's what the hardcover will likely cost, and I won't make a dime.

I don't want to offer it in paperback, but I might have to if I can't get the page count down (by achieving more words per page without shrinking the font below 10 point). Margin size is the key, and I've again been studying "The Stand" to see how Steve's paperback publishers did it. Man, they crammed up to 450 WPP on there, in 10 point type and in a smaller book format (8. 25 by 5). They probably decreased the line space too, squeezed everything to the minimum, and it's still very readble. and of couse SK has no worries about printing costs or pricing, because he's Stephen F. King. Well anyhow, that's more of my Adventures in Self-Publishing. I'm learning as I go, and I report it to you here.

Finally, R.I.P Parnelli Jones, one of the all-time Indy 500 drivers. Man, how great was he?