Howdy folks, and Happy Friday. Well, I didn't go to the Rainbow Backyard Bash, and I'm glad I stayed home because it was exactly as I predicted: a jam-packed sardine can on hot asphalt. I just don't do that anymore. My rule of thumb is The Crumminess Potential. I have a checklist, including the type of music, number of bands, general admission vs. reserved seating, outdoor vs. indoor, ticket price, venue and driving distance, and mostly, how much do I want or need to see the band or artist? I weigh all the factors, and if the Potential for Crumminess outweighs the Potential for an Awesome Experience, I stay home. Grimsley is the exact opposite. He'll drive anywhere and jump through any hoops for just about anyone, even tribute bands. But I have too many other things I'd rather do. I've been to over 800 concerts, seen every band I ever wanted to see (with a few exceptions), and unless a concert is easy for me to attend, I have no desire to hassle it. The Rainbow Bash was for diehard metalheads, which I am not (and never really was). I like shows in theaters, or small clubs, even arenas, anywhere with reserved seats. Anyhow, I didn't go. Grim did. He had a hard time finding parking, and then had to deal with the large crowd. His review? "It was pretty boring." That's because KK's Priest don't have many good songs. That's really all you need to know.
It was 114 degrees yesterday, a genuine rip-roaster, and it's 112 today. Remember that day about three or four years ago when it was 128? Cue Chris Farley: "That was...(shrug) awesome".
I have a Montgomery Clift movie for you: "The Search"(1948), his second film (and one of his best, though they all were). Interestingly, it is also the third Monty movie (out of only 17 he made) that is set in postwar Germany (the other two being "Judgement at Nuremberg" and "The Big Lift"). Here, we are in the American Zone in utterly destroyed Berlin (it looks like a nuclear wasteland, truly bombed into the Stone Age), where - as the movie opens - refugee children are being brought by train to displaced person camps from all over the formerly Nazi occupied territories. Many of them are terrifed, even of their Allied rescuers. To them, anyone in a uniform is a threat. They're also frightened of ambulances, since that is what the Germans used, at first, as mobile gas chambers. Most of the children are orphans whose parents were killed in concentration camps.
We are soon brought to focus on one little boy, the blonde and frail 11 year old "Karel" (Ivan Jandl) from Czechoslovakia who's so terrorized by his wartime experience that he's gone mute. When the kids in his rescue ambulance break out and escape, he runs into the hills with another boy, who drowns in a river. Karel hides in the ruined buildings on the outskirts of town, becoming feral, and it is there that he comes into contact with Monty, a US security officer. Monty sees Karel peeking down at him from the hillside and offers him a sandwich, then has to chase him when he runs away. Soon, after Karel is subdued (succumbing to hunger), it becomes a Buddy Movie. Because Karel won't speak, Monty doesn't know a thing about him, no name, no country, nothing. There's only the tattoo number on his arm, with an "A" for Auschwitz, but the fair-haired Karel doesn't appear to be Jewish. Monty begins a clerical search for the boy's parents or relatives (hence the title), and in a subplot, it turns out that another little boy (who is Jewish) has appropriated Karel's name, assuming he drowned after the ambulance escape. Monty eventually discovers that Karel is from a family of Czech musicians, showing that artists and intellectuals were also persecuted.
But he still can't get Karel to speak, and that's a problem, so Monty starts from scratch, trying to get the kid to learn to say "yes" and "no". Then he shows him pictures of various animals and objects, to teach him phonetic English, and because Karel now has food and shelter, he trusts Monty and becomes an excellent student. Then one day he has memory of his mother, from whom he was separated by the Nazis years earlier. He asks Monty what a "mother" is, and the movie threatens to turn tragic. "The Search" now moves in both directions, because Karel's mama (Jarmila Novotna) is looking for him, too. After surviving Mauthausen, she starts canvasing childrens' camps all over the Allied Zones, and when she can't locate Karel, she pauses her search to care for the orphaned camp kids.
Meanwhile Monty, not knowing Karel's name, had dubbed him "Jim" and plans to adopt him and take him to America. He assumes Karel's mother is dead, which leads to the film's climax. "The Search" is top notch early Clift, who plays Straight Man to the stone-faced but angelic Karel, who comes to love Monty as a father figure but ultimately wants to find his mother. Once again, the IMDB ratings and reviews are super high, just like in "Wild River". Ivan Jandl won a children's Oscar for his performance (when they still gave those out). Monty was a natural at easygoing comedy, and the early and lengthy bonding scenes between his character and Karel are some of the best of his career. He's playing off a scene-stealing urchin and he knows it. According to IMDB, before it was released on dvd, "The Search"was the most requested film on TCM. It's an absolute classic, with historic post-war footage of a time when the world could have ended but was rebuilt instead.
This was the 13th Monty Movie in our ongoing retrospective. We have four films left. Coming up will be "From Here to Eternity" (hopefully next blog), then we may have to purchase "Freud" and "The Defector" on dvd because those are not available at the library. And finally, we'll search high and low for a copy of "Raintree County", which doesn't seem to be available except for an Italian version which is unfortunately in PAL format. But I'll keep looking 'cause we've gotta see it.
Folks, I must say that the recently discovered 2009 Housesitting Incident (as I will call it) is freaking me out, because the person who hypnotized me actually did it more than once, and it freaks me out because I am learning that I am (or have been) suceptible to hypnosis, and that this person was aware of that fact, and used that awareness to plan to take advantage of me, in advance, likely before I was hired as the housesitter.
Would you like to know something scary? A person suceptible to hypnosis can be immobilized by a person skilled in hypnotic technique. Yes indeed. A skilled hypnotist can convince you that you can't move your arm, or can't move your legs, or that you can't move a muscle. During the Main Incident, I was at one point in a standing position but entirely immobilzed, so much that I could barely speak. I remember that it took extreme concentration just to croak a few words out, and I told the person - in front of a witness - "i...can...see...everything...you...are...doing...to...me..." I'm using lower case letters to emphasize how weak my voice was, but I wanted the person, and the witness, to know that I was aware of everything that was going on, despite the fact that I couldn't move.
Prior to the Incident, which took place in December 2009, this person had hypnotized me at least once (and likely more than once) in a sort of "trial run" before they eventually advanced to their main objective. On those early occasions, which took place in the house months prior to the main event, the person may have tested my suceptibility by, at first, merely "freezing" my arm, or maybe stopping me in my tracks with a keyword. That's how it is done, with keywords (hypnotic suggestion), and talismans (like a coin, perhaps a silver dollar). This person also used a penlight and a mirror.
One question I have is this: how and where did the person learn hypnosis? I mean, it's not like it's an everyday skill. But more than that, and way more scary and crazy, is how did the person know I was susceptible in the first place? The only way that is possible is if the person knew the details of what happened to me in 1989, when I was hypnotised and put in trance states on multiple occasions by several different people and one in particular whose name you'd recognize. Hypnotic states can also be achieved with surreptitiously administered drugs (i.e to "roofie" someone), and/or with certain radio wave frequencies.
What the person in question did, in 2009, was sinister because they had control over me. The ultimate reason they did what they did is kind of pathetic (and there's no doubt the person is mentally ill) but that doesn't excuse it, because it was nevertheless criminal and profoundly wrong. Slipping a drug into someone's soft drink, and then whipping out your penlight and mirror? And planning it all in advance? Yeah, that's sicko stuff. Boy, could I tell a story to a prosecutor (calling Kamala Harris...not!).
Well anyhow, I somehow keep going, even if it feels like my life has been some kind of occult nightmare. Maybe God is using me to root out evil people. I hope to find answers one day.
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