Tonight I watched "Can You Ever Forgive Me"? (2018) starring Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant. I know I said in my review of "The Favourite" that I wasn't gonna watch any more new movies, but this one sounded like it might actually be good. It had an interesting premise, too, so I gave it a shot and this time I wasn't disappointed. You might have seen it since it was recently released and was also nominated for several Oscars, but I'll give you the basics of the story anyhow.
McCarthy plays Lee Israel, a writer who once had minor success writing biographies of old movie stars. Her career is on the downswing now, though, and she can't even hold onto her side job writing copy for some anonymous firm. It doesn't help that she is an alcoholic and an unpleasant person to begin with. Her literary agent (Jane Curtin) avoids her phone calls. She is also three months behind on the rent of her fly-infested apartment. As the movie opens, she is about to hit rock bottom. Then two things happen and her luck begins to change.
The first thing that happens is that she meets a kindred soul. She has no friends in her life, but by chance, while sitting at the corner bar, in walks Richard E. Grant, playing a flamboyant but shifty gay man. Grant is a fantastic actor who nails this part. The character is named Jack Hock, a real life person who Lee Israel met at a writer's party sometime in the past. Hock is not a writer, but a con artist. He is worn out now, pushing 60 but still using cocaine and looking for any angle he can find to avoid living a real life. Like Lee, he is also an alcoholic. They bond in this way, and as Hock is an unrepentant criminal - albeit a low level, non-violent one - he inspires Lee to let go of her last vestiges of any pretense of respectability. He does not do this overtly. She is a Type A personality and cannot be dictated to. Rather, his influence is subliminal. Merely by hanging out with him, at a point when her life is in the trash can, she absorbs his devil-may-care attitude.
The second thing that happens is that she discovers a letter in an old book she is reading for research on a proposed biography of Fanny Brice. The letter is from Brice herself. Israel can't believe her good fortune, so she steals the letter from the research library and takes it home. Her cat is sick and needs medicine. She knows that there a multiple collector's shops in the city who will pay good money for literary artifacts, like......say........an old letter from a once famous comedienne like Fanny Brice.
She sells the letter to a collector, pays for her cat's medicine, and then gets an idea.
"H'mmmm......I'm a writer. What if I were to forge these kinds of letters, from old movie stars or New York literary types, letters that were written to their peers, their confidantes"?
She doesn't say those words aloud or think them; the above quoted sentence is just me getting inside her head, but it's the gist of her thoughts when the wheels start to turn as she forms her scheme.
Soon she has her rent all paid up and extra money left over. She takes Richard E. Grant out to dinner and confides to him what she is up to. Because he himself is a schemer, you keep expecting Grant to double cross Israel, but he never does. His presence in her life will eventually cause complications though. Ultimately, she has no one to blame but herself, and I don't want to give spoilers, but one of the most revealing scenes of the movie comes late. She has to make a self-assessment (you will see why), and even at this point she cannot take full responsibility for her actions.
She is a tragic figure and would be entirely unlikeable were it not for her underlying awareness of the immorality of the criminal and utterly false lifestyle she has jumped into, letting go of all self worth.
Melissa McCarthy shows major league acting chops here as the dowdy Lee Israel, living in her filthy apartment but still aspiring to literary glory no matter how she attains it.
Richard E. Grant steals the show, however. It is his character that provides the criminal impetus, the anarchic energy, for Ms. Israel to chuck all convention and dive headfirst into the risky business of being a forger. Writing is all she knows how to do. If she can't get paid legitimately, she will go the other route. It's a true story, and it might be a depressing one were it not played straight by McCarthy and Grant, and a top notch supporting cast including an actress named Dolly Wells who plays a bookstore owner who befriends Lee Israel, leading to the possibility of a more intimate relationship.
Two Big Thumbs Up for "Can You Forgive Me"? There is not a lot of plot development, it is kind of a "point A to point B to point C" story that you know will play itself out in a certain way, but the movie's strength is in it's acting performances and in the steady direction.
Grant and McCarthy hold the whole thing together. Wells and the other players provide supportive color.
Give it a view, I say, and I don't say that about too many current pictures. ////
Today was a Hot One - 103 degrees! Now that's a good start to Summer. Let's hope it continues.
We had super-good singing in church, hope your day was good too, see you in the morn.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo tons of love. :):)
Monday, June 10, 2019
Sunday, June 9, 2019
"Love With The Proper Stranger" starring Steve McQueen and Natalie Wood
Tonight I watched a movie called "Love With The Proper Stranger" (1963), starring Steve McQueen and Natalie Wood, and directed by Robert Mulligan of "To Kill A Mockingbird" fame. The movie opens in New York City. McQueen is entering a crowded ballroom that is being used as a meeting hall for the local musician's union. He is looking for a gig as is nearly everyone inside. It is never specified what instrument he plays, but that will become unimportant as the plot will soon take a turn in a completely different direction with the arrival of Natalie Wood, who in real life was 25 but in the movie is perhaps playing somewhere between 18-21, though her character's age is never specified either.
As McQueen tries to hustle a gig, he gets a page over the loudspeaker. Pushing through the crowd of musicians, he comes upon a young woman (Wood) who says "Hello", but then their conversation falters before it begins. She seems to expect McQueen to know her, but he doesn't. Then she drops a bombshell : "I'm going to have a baby". She certainly knows who he is, and he can't continue to pretend he doesn't know who she is for very long. At the present time, though, she storms out of the union hall, pregnant by McQueen yet basically ignored after giving him the news.
The implication is that he is a "typical musician" - fast with groupies, uncaring later on - but he isn't a total heel. He does in fact remember her from a one night stand after a show a few months earlier. Before leaving the musician's hall, she gave him her place of employment, Macy's department store, so he shows up there to try and do right by her.
During their awkward meeting at the hall, Natalie shyly asked McQueen if he "might happen to know a doctor" to assist her with her pregnancy. In 1963, the issue of abortion was just beginning to be dealt with in a handful of motion pictures. Here it is presented delicately at first, just by her inquiry. She never says what she needs the doctor for, and McQueen doesn't ask. In 2019, however, the implication is clear (as I'm sure it was in 1963 as well).
McQueen feels bad and shows up at Macy's, with the name of a doctor and a quoted price : 400 dollars. The scenes that follow are very poignant, yet not depressing or overly dramatic. McQueen, while still trying to keep his emotional distance from Natalie, accompanies her on the clandestine trip to the abortion "doctor". Of course this subject is topical right now, but in 1963, when the issue of back alley abortions was first being confronted in movies, it was new to popular culture, as an open admission of what many women already knew - that a trip to the abortionist might cost them their lives.
The movie deals with this issue very seriously, and the plot turns on this appointment. The "doctor" turns out to be an old woman in a room with some blankets and steel instruments, and it's all very horrible. But then - the plot axis - Steve McQueen becomes instantly protective of Natalie Wood. He pulls her out of there, and because she is now going to keep the baby, he offers to marry her on the spot.
This is New York in 1963, everyone in the movie is either Irish or Italian (mostly the latter), and Natalie's family is Italian and Catholic. She has brothers who drive a fruit truck for a living but who also follow her around to spy on her in the name of "protecting her honor". Herschel Bernardi plays one of the brothers with brute force. I think he got an Oscar nomination for his performance and deservedly so. He is out to get McQueen, until he finds out that Steve is indeed willing to marry his sister Natalie.
Now the plot shifts again, from serious to Rom-Com. Steve McQueen, itinerant musician though he is, is willing to marry Natalie Wood, which - in the patriarchal family structures of the time - is good enough for the overprotecting brothers of Miss Wood. They agree to let Steve off the hook if he will marry their sister.
But she won't accept his offer, because she is a modern woman, a concept that began in the 1920s but took several decades to take hold, and she won't marry any man just to save face for her family. She won't marry McQueen because she feels he doesn't love her. She sees him as a self-absorbed musician who likes the hedonistic lifestyle, and she would rather date a nebbish friend of the family (Tom Bosley of "Happy Days" fame), who owns a restaurant and is a total Momma's Boy than marry handsome and cool Steve McQueen, just because he won't commit.
As I say, this is where the movie turns from serious to rom-com as the abortion issue is dealt with and the feelings of the couple grow as the fear dissipates. Now she is going to have a baby regardless, but can McQueen commit his heart to her in marriage? She is far ahead of him. She has moved out of her family's apartment and has her own place. He still lives with a stripper (Edie Adams).
The chemistry between Wood and McQueen is like real life, and this pairing makes the movie. Steve McQueen in particular was so good at nonchalant comedy. I had never seen him playing a "schmo" until recently. I thought he only played super cool outlaws and romantic heroes, but now I see he can do it all. He is rapidly becoming one of my favorite actors. So yeah, the coupling of the two is what holds the film together, and they are bolstered by the support of Herschel Bernardi as Miss Wood's brother.
There are many other excellent characters in peripheral roles, especially Tom Bosley as the geeky restaurateur and Edie Adams as McQueen's showgirl roomie.
The black and white photography is excellent and provides a time capsule of New York's concrete jungle in the early 60s. You feel as if you know the place even if you've never been there.
I give "Love With The Proper Stranger" Two Big Thumbs Up, even though the shift in tone from serious to comedic feels a little abrubt, and even though the ending could've been stronger. These are minor complaints, however, because this film was a gem, a nuanced tale of the intricacies of love and how different people define it's meaning in relation to their own personal needs. /////
Tomorrow morning is church so I will see you there. The singing will be mutually good.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
As McQueen tries to hustle a gig, he gets a page over the loudspeaker. Pushing through the crowd of musicians, he comes upon a young woman (Wood) who says "Hello", but then their conversation falters before it begins. She seems to expect McQueen to know her, but he doesn't. Then she drops a bombshell : "I'm going to have a baby". She certainly knows who he is, and he can't continue to pretend he doesn't know who she is for very long. At the present time, though, she storms out of the union hall, pregnant by McQueen yet basically ignored after giving him the news.
The implication is that he is a "typical musician" - fast with groupies, uncaring later on - but he isn't a total heel. He does in fact remember her from a one night stand after a show a few months earlier. Before leaving the musician's hall, she gave him her place of employment, Macy's department store, so he shows up there to try and do right by her.
During their awkward meeting at the hall, Natalie shyly asked McQueen if he "might happen to know a doctor" to assist her with her pregnancy. In 1963, the issue of abortion was just beginning to be dealt with in a handful of motion pictures. Here it is presented delicately at first, just by her inquiry. She never says what she needs the doctor for, and McQueen doesn't ask. In 2019, however, the implication is clear (as I'm sure it was in 1963 as well).
McQueen feels bad and shows up at Macy's, with the name of a doctor and a quoted price : 400 dollars. The scenes that follow are very poignant, yet not depressing or overly dramatic. McQueen, while still trying to keep his emotional distance from Natalie, accompanies her on the clandestine trip to the abortion "doctor". Of course this subject is topical right now, but in 1963, when the issue of back alley abortions was first being confronted in movies, it was new to popular culture, as an open admission of what many women already knew - that a trip to the abortionist might cost them their lives.
The movie deals with this issue very seriously, and the plot turns on this appointment. The "doctor" turns out to be an old woman in a room with some blankets and steel instruments, and it's all very horrible. But then - the plot axis - Steve McQueen becomes instantly protective of Natalie Wood. He pulls her out of there, and because she is now going to keep the baby, he offers to marry her on the spot.
This is New York in 1963, everyone in the movie is either Irish or Italian (mostly the latter), and Natalie's family is Italian and Catholic. She has brothers who drive a fruit truck for a living but who also follow her around to spy on her in the name of "protecting her honor". Herschel Bernardi plays one of the brothers with brute force. I think he got an Oscar nomination for his performance and deservedly so. He is out to get McQueen, until he finds out that Steve is indeed willing to marry his sister Natalie.
Now the plot shifts again, from serious to Rom-Com. Steve McQueen, itinerant musician though he is, is willing to marry Natalie Wood, which - in the patriarchal family structures of the time - is good enough for the overprotecting brothers of Miss Wood. They agree to let Steve off the hook if he will marry their sister.
But she won't accept his offer, because she is a modern woman, a concept that began in the 1920s but took several decades to take hold, and she won't marry any man just to save face for her family. She won't marry McQueen because she feels he doesn't love her. She sees him as a self-absorbed musician who likes the hedonistic lifestyle, and she would rather date a nebbish friend of the family (Tom Bosley of "Happy Days" fame), who owns a restaurant and is a total Momma's Boy than marry handsome and cool Steve McQueen, just because he won't commit.
As I say, this is where the movie turns from serious to rom-com as the abortion issue is dealt with and the feelings of the couple grow as the fear dissipates. Now she is going to have a baby regardless, but can McQueen commit his heart to her in marriage? She is far ahead of him. She has moved out of her family's apartment and has her own place. He still lives with a stripper (Edie Adams).
The chemistry between Wood and McQueen is like real life, and this pairing makes the movie. Steve McQueen in particular was so good at nonchalant comedy. I had never seen him playing a "schmo" until recently. I thought he only played super cool outlaws and romantic heroes, but now I see he can do it all. He is rapidly becoming one of my favorite actors. So yeah, the coupling of the two is what holds the film together, and they are bolstered by the support of Herschel Bernardi as Miss Wood's brother.
There are many other excellent characters in peripheral roles, especially Tom Bosley as the geeky restaurateur and Edie Adams as McQueen's showgirl roomie.
The black and white photography is excellent and provides a time capsule of New York's concrete jungle in the early 60s. You feel as if you know the place even if you've never been there.
I give "Love With The Proper Stranger" Two Big Thumbs Up, even though the shift in tone from serious to comedic feels a little abrubt, and even though the ending could've been stronger. These are minor complaints, however, because this film was a gem, a nuanced tale of the intricacies of love and how different people define it's meaning in relation to their own personal needs. /////
Tomorrow morning is church so I will see you there. The singing will be mutually good.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Friday, June 7, 2019
"The Favourite", really and truly bad on a grand scale
Tonight I watched a movie called "The Favourite" (2018), which you may know and might have seen yourself. It received a whopping 10 Oscar nominations and won four, including the Best Actress award for Olivia Coleman, and Best Original Screenplay for whoever it was that wrote it. I checked it out from The Libe on a recommendation from Grimsley, who remarked that he "doesn't usually like costume dramas" but he loved this one.
Knowing Grim, that should have been enough warning for me to stay away.
Yikes was this ever a bad movie. I mean, we're talking spectacularly bad, folks.
It's like if you took Masterpiece Theater and dragged it through the mud, staged a wrestling match in the mud puddle and then tipped over an Andy Gump on the participants, just for good measure.
I know it is en vogue now for up-and-coming "directors" (and I use the term loosely) to show how edgy they are by adding gratuitous violence, language or sexuality into the mix. A year or two ago, I turned off a movie called "Three Billboards Something Or Other" (another Oscar Darling) after just 40 minutes or so for this very reason. It was just pure violent garbage with foul language and extremely unlikeable characters. This is the new style of "arty" motion pictures, which is why I don't watch new movies any more. Almost all of them either suck - big time - or are made for kids with the same generic CGI effects that morph from one thing into another and all look cheap and the same.
Not trying to be a curmudgeon here, just stating my opinion, but it's the same kind of deal with the decline of popular culture and the arts in general. Folks today will equate rap "music" with the exponentially more substantial and creative real and actual pop music of the 60s through the 90s, and they will say that "it is defining the times" or "speaking to the feelings of youth" or whatever.
Nothing is said about the lack of articulation of said feelings, or the non-existent music. It is praised because it is "edgy" - meaning that someone is talking foul or tough - and it is praised because it comes "from the streets", even if some of the guys that make such "music" now live in mansions, or in the case of Jay-Z, he is now a billionaire. It's not art in any way, shape or form, it's just ugliness, and on top of that it's fake because the so-called "artists" don't even mean it. It's just a way for them to get noticed.
So, the idea of "edginess" is 100% phoney baloney, and is an excuse for lack of creative talent, period and end of story. It's not me who is being a curmudgeon, it's the music and motion picture industry who are either too lazy or unable to find the kind of true creative talent that made both industries so great and inspiring to people like me prior to about the year 2000 or so.
Regarding the motion picture industry, it's only in recent years - perhaps the last five or so - that things have gotten so bad that I don't even bother to catch up on the Oscar nominated films anymore, once they have been released on dvd. To be fair, I am sure there are a few good films each year. "Roma" was supposed to be one of them, and I have no doubt it is good. But is it great? Is it tremendous?
That is the standard I set, because I am used to it, from watching so many truly great films from the past. Don't tell me a film is great just because it won an Oscar in 2019, and don't tell me a film is a masterpiece unless it can stand with true masterworks from cinema's incredible past. Sorry, but that's just how it goes. I wouldn't get so teed off, but I am sick of lowbrow stuff like "The Favourite" getting praised to the hilt. It's the opposite of a great movie.
This is why I cannot be accused of being merely a curmudgeon, because I do know movies, and I do know rock music, and I know both of those arts through and through, back to front and vice versa.
And it depresses me to see a movie like "The Favourite" get so many accolades, because the movie industry can do so much better. One of the Oscars this movie won was for Best Screenplay. Watch for yourself and see if you think it deserves the award. I was thinking the opposite, that it was a terrible script, one that substituted numerous "C-words", "F-words", other body part words, toilet humor and silly sexual situations (as opposed to meaningful ones) for actual plot and story structure.
Now you know why I rave about the screenwriters of the Golden Era (1930s through 50s). They knew how to write an actual story, one that involved you as a viewer. Think of it this way : who do you think is funnier, a comedian like Andrew Dice Clay. who runs off a string of four-letter words to tell crude sexual jokes, or a guy like Jerry Seinfeld?
Well anyway, I have expended too much time on "The Favourite". It was not my favorite, and the only reason I didn't turn it off early on was because of the genuine talent of the three actresses involved : Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone and the aforementioned Olivia Coleman. Still and all, their work is wasted here, and in the end I only stuck it out and endured the movie just to be polite.
It was That Bad.
But I'll be accepting no more recommendations from Grim. He likes a lot of crude stuff; I don't.
I just don't have time for anything crummy, and until modern movies show me different, I'll not be watching. ////
Sorry about the downer review, haha. I did have a nice hike up at Aliso, and I did also watch an incredibly awesome episode of "Tales Of Tomorrow", in which a doctor, down on his luck, purchases a Black Bag from a pawnshop. You know black bags, of the kind doctors once carried when they made house calls. Anyway, he soon finds that the surgical instruments inside the bag carry a patent inscribed from the year 2450, five hundred years in the future......
Holy Smokes and My Goodness Gracious, how in the world could that have happened? Well, no matter. He starts curing people right and left and gets his own life straightened around. But then his wife gets visions of sugarplums dancing in her head. She sees millions of dollars in their future, but the black bag has a warning label inside - that the medical instruments are not to be used unethically.
Man, what would you do if you bought a black doctor's bag from a pawn shop and it turned out to have been manufactured 500 years in the future?
No need to answer right away. I'll be sleeping on that one myself.
Tomorrow morning I go back to work. It was a good few days off.
Tons of love in the meantime, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Tonight was a little bit of a bust because I spent the evening waiting for the arrival of a long time friend, who is in town from Arizona (his home for the past few years), but he never showed. Grim was with me, as he wanted to see the guy too. We've known Ryan since 1977, when he was just six years old. He is now 48 - my goodness - and he is a legendary figure who was part of the infamous Burton Street household in the mid-1990s that also consisted of me, Mister D, and my Dad. That was a foursome for the ages, I'll tell ya, and Ryan was an equal player in the chaos in every respect. He and I are the only two of the Burton Street gang still alive, and there were times a dozen years ago when I wasn't sure he would make it.
But he hung in there, cleaned up his act somewhat, and moved to Arizona about five years ago. Tonight he was scheduled to meet Grim & I at my place, but he never showed. Ahh, well.....
Maybe tomorrow night. Or maybe not. I love the guy but I'm not thrilled with flaky behavior anymore.
I don't wanna live like it's still the 80s or 90s, and I really don't wanna be One Of The Boys anymore.
Really, really I don't. I just wanna get married and live a normal life, like everybody else
Knowing Grim, that should have been enough warning for me to stay away.
Yikes was this ever a bad movie. I mean, we're talking spectacularly bad, folks.
It's like if you took Masterpiece Theater and dragged it through the mud, staged a wrestling match in the mud puddle and then tipped over an Andy Gump on the participants, just for good measure.
I know it is en vogue now for up-and-coming "directors" (and I use the term loosely) to show how edgy they are by adding gratuitous violence, language or sexuality into the mix. A year or two ago, I turned off a movie called "Three Billboards Something Or Other" (another Oscar Darling) after just 40 minutes or so for this very reason. It was just pure violent garbage with foul language and extremely unlikeable characters. This is the new style of "arty" motion pictures, which is why I don't watch new movies any more. Almost all of them either suck - big time - or are made for kids with the same generic CGI effects that morph from one thing into another and all look cheap and the same.
Not trying to be a curmudgeon here, just stating my opinion, but it's the same kind of deal with the decline of popular culture and the arts in general. Folks today will equate rap "music" with the exponentially more substantial and creative real and actual pop music of the 60s through the 90s, and they will say that "it is defining the times" or "speaking to the feelings of youth" or whatever.
Nothing is said about the lack of articulation of said feelings, or the non-existent music. It is praised because it is "edgy" - meaning that someone is talking foul or tough - and it is praised because it comes "from the streets", even if some of the guys that make such "music" now live in mansions, or in the case of Jay-Z, he is now a billionaire. It's not art in any way, shape or form, it's just ugliness, and on top of that it's fake because the so-called "artists" don't even mean it. It's just a way for them to get noticed.
So, the idea of "edginess" is 100% phoney baloney, and is an excuse for lack of creative talent, period and end of story. It's not me who is being a curmudgeon, it's the music and motion picture industry who are either too lazy or unable to find the kind of true creative talent that made both industries so great and inspiring to people like me prior to about the year 2000 or so.
Regarding the motion picture industry, it's only in recent years - perhaps the last five or so - that things have gotten so bad that I don't even bother to catch up on the Oscar nominated films anymore, once they have been released on dvd. To be fair, I am sure there are a few good films each year. "Roma" was supposed to be one of them, and I have no doubt it is good. But is it great? Is it tremendous?
That is the standard I set, because I am used to it, from watching so many truly great films from the past. Don't tell me a film is great just because it won an Oscar in 2019, and don't tell me a film is a masterpiece unless it can stand with true masterworks from cinema's incredible past. Sorry, but that's just how it goes. I wouldn't get so teed off, but I am sick of lowbrow stuff like "The Favourite" getting praised to the hilt. It's the opposite of a great movie.
This is why I cannot be accused of being merely a curmudgeon, because I do know movies, and I do know rock music, and I know both of those arts through and through, back to front and vice versa.
And it depresses me to see a movie like "The Favourite" get so many accolades, because the movie industry can do so much better. One of the Oscars this movie won was for Best Screenplay. Watch for yourself and see if you think it deserves the award. I was thinking the opposite, that it was a terrible script, one that substituted numerous "C-words", "F-words", other body part words, toilet humor and silly sexual situations (as opposed to meaningful ones) for actual plot and story structure.
Now you know why I rave about the screenwriters of the Golden Era (1930s through 50s). They knew how to write an actual story, one that involved you as a viewer. Think of it this way : who do you think is funnier, a comedian like Andrew Dice Clay. who runs off a string of four-letter words to tell crude sexual jokes, or a guy like Jerry Seinfeld?
Well anyway, I have expended too much time on "The Favourite". It was not my favorite, and the only reason I didn't turn it off early on was because of the genuine talent of the three actresses involved : Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone and the aforementioned Olivia Coleman. Still and all, their work is wasted here, and in the end I only stuck it out and endured the movie just to be polite.
It was That Bad.
But I'll be accepting no more recommendations from Grim. He likes a lot of crude stuff; I don't.
I just don't have time for anything crummy, and until modern movies show me different, I'll not be watching. ////
Sorry about the downer review, haha. I did have a nice hike up at Aliso, and I did also watch an incredibly awesome episode of "Tales Of Tomorrow", in which a doctor, down on his luck, purchases a Black Bag from a pawnshop. You know black bags, of the kind doctors once carried when they made house calls. Anyway, he soon finds that the surgical instruments inside the bag carry a patent inscribed from the year 2450, five hundred years in the future......
Holy Smokes and My Goodness Gracious, how in the world could that have happened? Well, no matter. He starts curing people right and left and gets his own life straightened around. But then his wife gets visions of sugarplums dancing in her head. She sees millions of dollars in their future, but the black bag has a warning label inside - that the medical instruments are not to be used unethically.
Man, what would you do if you bought a black doctor's bag from a pawn shop and it turned out to have been manufactured 500 years in the future?
No need to answer right away. I'll be sleeping on that one myself.
Tomorrow morning I go back to work. It was a good few days off.
Tons of love in the meantime, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Tonight was a little bit of a bust because I spent the evening waiting for the arrival of a long time friend, who is in town from Arizona (his home for the past few years), but he never showed. Grim was with me, as he wanted to see the guy too. We've known Ryan since 1977, when he was just six years old. He is now 48 - my goodness - and he is a legendary figure who was part of the infamous Burton Street household in the mid-1990s that also consisted of me, Mister D, and my Dad. That was a foursome for the ages, I'll tell ya, and Ryan was an equal player in the chaos in every respect. He and I are the only two of the Burton Street gang still alive, and there were times a dozen years ago when I wasn't sure he would make it.
But he hung in there, cleaned up his act somewhat, and moved to Arizona about five years ago. Tonight he was scheduled to meet Grim & I at my place, but he never showed. Ahh, well.....
Maybe tomorrow night. Or maybe not. I love the guy but I'm not thrilled with flaky behavior anymore.
I don't wanna live like it's still the 80s or 90s, and I really don't wanna be One Of The Boys anymore.
Really, really I don't. I just wanna get married and live a normal life, like everybody else
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
Elizabeth + Whitney Canyon + Tom G Warrior's book
Hey Elizabeth! That is super cool that you made it to Los Angeles. Are you still here or did you just come out for the Cinegear show? I saw that it was one of your hashtags. If you're here for a while and need anyone to go to Disneyland with, just let me know. L.A. is an awesome place with so much to see and I hope you are enjoying your visit! I'm glad you got to see the Walk Of Fame and the Observatory, and Paramount Studios. You've got "one up" on me there.....I've never been to Paramount. Driven past, but never been inside. :)
What else have you seen, and did you take any more pictures? Did you see Grauman's Chinese? How about the Sunset Strip? Have you seen The Whisky or The Roxy? Have you had a chance to see the beach? Malibu, Santa Monica or Zuma? I could show you a lot of different places, but I know you must have come out here for a specific reason, maybe Cinegear or something else.
Well anyway, whatever the situation - post more pics! And if you feel like it, write a little bit about your impression of our city. I know you don't use Facebook anymore, but maybe just this once.....
I would love to know what you think. :)
Anyhow, keep having a blast if you're still here, and if you've left, come back again soon.
And don't forget about Disneyland. Man......I haven't been since 2011.....and I can't go by myself!
(well, I mean I could......but it wouldn't be as much fun). And the new Star Wars Land just opened.
As the saying goes, "L.A. 's The Place". Hope you are enjoying your stay. :)
I have been off work since Friday and have been going on hikes, which are nearly impossible to do anymore on workdays. Today I went out to Whitney Canyon in Newhall and had a very nice time. I've been to Whitney perhaps 15-20 times since 2014, when I began hiking in earnest. It's the place I photographed a deer a couple of year ago, and it has some lovely forested hollows and a narrow canyon trail section with wildflowers in bloom in the Spring. That is what I saw today, tons of flowers all over the place. I think it explains the number of people that were on the trail; at least a dozen or more. In the past, I have never seen more than one or two hikers and often I am alone in the vast park.
This evening was a Western Night on screen. I watched an episode of "High Chaparral", a fantastic series that I saw as a kid and am really enjoying now, and also a 60 minute Tim Holt Western, which you know all the plots to, so I'll not go into detail, haha.
I have recently begun reading a book I purchased last year, but which sat in the queue for a while simply because it is a physically large and heavy book and thus was not conducive to being read lying down or held in one hand like a paperback. This was a book I needed to read sitting upright in a chair with the book in my lap, and - like hiking - this is not easy to do given my work schedule and my need to relax when I am not at work (or go for my walks, etc.) Book reading is generally done "on the fly", lying down to relax, a lightweight book held aloft in one (possibly two) hands, with easy reach adjustment made for eyestrain or fuzzy vision.
The book in question is called "Only Death Is Real", an ominous title by any author, but given extra gravity by the authorship of Thomas Gabriel Fischer, aka Tom G. Warrior of Celtic Frost fame.
Tom G., along with the band Venom, basically invented Black Metal. The book is the story of his beginnings as a musician, how he overcame a horrible upbringing with an insane mother to discover metal music as a refuge. Judas Priest and Iron Maiden were his heroes as a teen (as they were for all of us), but he wanted something even heavier to give voice to how he was feeling inside.
In 1981 he discovered Venom. They became his musical saviors and his inspiration to form a band of his own.
Tom Fischer's story could be instructional and hugely inspirational to any musician playing in any style, let alone metal. I am kind of astonished as I read, because I did not know many of the details of his life or musical background.
Before he formed Celtic Frost, he had a band called Hellhammer. I believe I mentioned them (and maybe the book, too) in a recent blog. You'll have to forgive me if I repeat myself. I write so much and have little time to read over what I've written, so I often forget the contents of previous blogs, but anyhow, Hellhammer was the precursor to Celtic Frost, and Thomas Gabriel Fisher was the founder of both bands.
Here's what is so impressive :
He was just a teenaged kid from a small village in Switzerland. He never picked up a guitar until he was 18. In that respect I can identify. He and his cohorts formed a band (Hellhammer) even though they could barely play their instruments. The practiced every day, still weren't very proficient, but had an opportunity to record a demo tape. Through sheer and relentless perseverence, and the quitting of band members, Tom G. kept going. He did not live in Hollywood or London. Switzerland had only a minimal music scene and was a conservative country.......how could he possibly have made it?
He did not even pick up a guitar until 1981.
He and his band Hellhammer were still complete amateurs on their instruments as late as Fall 1983. They had a demo tape circulating that was so poorly executed that it was considered a joke by local European record labels.
But Tom G. had an Artistic Vision that was not going to be denied. He wanted to have the heaviest band on the planet, because heavy music had saved his life. He was unique as a musician in that he didn't smoke, drink or take drugs. For him, it was all about music, and even though he didn't know how to play, and didn't own a guitar until he was 18, he was 1000% focused on his goal.
This book is blowing my mind, because I saw Tom Fischer and Celtic Frost at Fender's Ballroom in September 1986. Celtic Frost by then had two albums out, both of them classics. The first was called "Morbid Tales", and the second was the legendary "To Mega Therion" with it's cover by HR Geiger.
Only ELP had a cover by HR Geiger.
Now Tom had one too, only five years since he first began playing guitar, and only three years since he was playing for his friends in a basement rehearsal space with the sub-amateurish Hellhammer.
And now, just three years later in 1986, he was touring America with Celtic Frost, having recorded an album of genius called "To Mega Therion", which is on my list of the all-time Top 30 albums ever made.
Tom Fischer's story is a story for the ages, and one any artist might read for instructions on how to keep focused in the face of insurmountable odds.
He is also an excellent writer who tells a gripping tale. You feel like you are with him every step of the way, and in my case it brought back sympathetic memories of my own attempts to have a band during the same time period, and all the distractions and frustrations that went with it. And the joy, too.
"Only Death Is Real" is one of the greatest rock n' roll stories I've ever read. The book is big and heavy, just like Tom's music, so I'm reading it sitting up, with the book in my lap.
But it's still a page turner, and packed with photographs too, from early Hellhammer onwards.
If you are a fan of Tom G., it's a must read. If you are a metal fan, ditto.
But again, it's a book for anyone who doesn't fit in. Tom shows you the way out. ////
That's all for tonight. See you in the morn after yet another sleep in, lol.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo tons of love xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
What else have you seen, and did you take any more pictures? Did you see Grauman's Chinese? How about the Sunset Strip? Have you seen The Whisky or The Roxy? Have you had a chance to see the beach? Malibu, Santa Monica or Zuma? I could show you a lot of different places, but I know you must have come out here for a specific reason, maybe Cinegear or something else.
Well anyway, whatever the situation - post more pics! And if you feel like it, write a little bit about your impression of our city. I know you don't use Facebook anymore, but maybe just this once.....
I would love to know what you think. :)
Anyhow, keep having a blast if you're still here, and if you've left, come back again soon.
And don't forget about Disneyland. Man......I haven't been since 2011.....and I can't go by myself!
(well, I mean I could......but it wouldn't be as much fun). And the new Star Wars Land just opened.
As the saying goes, "L.A. 's The Place". Hope you are enjoying your stay. :)
I have been off work since Friday and have been going on hikes, which are nearly impossible to do anymore on workdays. Today I went out to Whitney Canyon in Newhall and had a very nice time. I've been to Whitney perhaps 15-20 times since 2014, when I began hiking in earnest. It's the place I photographed a deer a couple of year ago, and it has some lovely forested hollows and a narrow canyon trail section with wildflowers in bloom in the Spring. That is what I saw today, tons of flowers all over the place. I think it explains the number of people that were on the trail; at least a dozen or more. In the past, I have never seen more than one or two hikers and often I am alone in the vast park.
This evening was a Western Night on screen. I watched an episode of "High Chaparral", a fantastic series that I saw as a kid and am really enjoying now, and also a 60 minute Tim Holt Western, which you know all the plots to, so I'll not go into detail, haha.
I have recently begun reading a book I purchased last year, but which sat in the queue for a while simply because it is a physically large and heavy book and thus was not conducive to being read lying down or held in one hand like a paperback. This was a book I needed to read sitting upright in a chair with the book in my lap, and - like hiking - this is not easy to do given my work schedule and my need to relax when I am not at work (or go for my walks, etc.) Book reading is generally done "on the fly", lying down to relax, a lightweight book held aloft in one (possibly two) hands, with easy reach adjustment made for eyestrain or fuzzy vision.
The book in question is called "Only Death Is Real", an ominous title by any author, but given extra gravity by the authorship of Thomas Gabriel Fischer, aka Tom G. Warrior of Celtic Frost fame.
Tom G., along with the band Venom, basically invented Black Metal. The book is the story of his beginnings as a musician, how he overcame a horrible upbringing with an insane mother to discover metal music as a refuge. Judas Priest and Iron Maiden were his heroes as a teen (as they were for all of us), but he wanted something even heavier to give voice to how he was feeling inside.
In 1981 he discovered Venom. They became his musical saviors and his inspiration to form a band of his own.
Tom Fischer's story could be instructional and hugely inspirational to any musician playing in any style, let alone metal. I am kind of astonished as I read, because I did not know many of the details of his life or musical background.
Before he formed Celtic Frost, he had a band called Hellhammer. I believe I mentioned them (and maybe the book, too) in a recent blog. You'll have to forgive me if I repeat myself. I write so much and have little time to read over what I've written, so I often forget the contents of previous blogs, but anyhow, Hellhammer was the precursor to Celtic Frost, and Thomas Gabriel Fisher was the founder of both bands.
Here's what is so impressive :
He was just a teenaged kid from a small village in Switzerland. He never picked up a guitar until he was 18. In that respect I can identify. He and his cohorts formed a band (Hellhammer) even though they could barely play their instruments. The practiced every day, still weren't very proficient, but had an opportunity to record a demo tape. Through sheer and relentless perseverence, and the quitting of band members, Tom G. kept going. He did not live in Hollywood or London. Switzerland had only a minimal music scene and was a conservative country.......how could he possibly have made it?
He did not even pick up a guitar until 1981.
He and his band Hellhammer were still complete amateurs on their instruments as late as Fall 1983. They had a demo tape circulating that was so poorly executed that it was considered a joke by local European record labels.
But Tom G. had an Artistic Vision that was not going to be denied. He wanted to have the heaviest band on the planet, because heavy music had saved his life. He was unique as a musician in that he didn't smoke, drink or take drugs. For him, it was all about music, and even though he didn't know how to play, and didn't own a guitar until he was 18, he was 1000% focused on his goal.
This book is blowing my mind, because I saw Tom Fischer and Celtic Frost at Fender's Ballroom in September 1986. Celtic Frost by then had two albums out, both of them classics. The first was called "Morbid Tales", and the second was the legendary "To Mega Therion" with it's cover by HR Geiger.
Only ELP had a cover by HR Geiger.
Now Tom had one too, only five years since he first began playing guitar, and only three years since he was playing for his friends in a basement rehearsal space with the sub-amateurish Hellhammer.
And now, just three years later in 1986, he was touring America with Celtic Frost, having recorded an album of genius called "To Mega Therion", which is on my list of the all-time Top 30 albums ever made.
Tom Fischer's story is a story for the ages, and one any artist might read for instructions on how to keep focused in the face of insurmountable odds.
He is also an excellent writer who tells a gripping tale. You feel like you are with him every step of the way, and in my case it brought back sympathetic memories of my own attempts to have a band during the same time period, and all the distractions and frustrations that went with it. And the joy, too.
"Only Death Is Real" is one of the greatest rock n' roll stories I've ever read. The book is big and heavy, just like Tom's music, so I'm reading it sitting up, with the book in my lap.
But it's still a page turner, and packed with photographs too, from early Hellhammer onwards.
If you are a fan of Tom G., it's a must read. If you are a metal fan, ditto.
But again, it's a book for anyone who doesn't fit in. Tom shows you the way out. ////
That's all for tonight. See you in the morn after yet another sleep in, lol.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo tons of love xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Tuesday, June 4, 2019
"Baltic Storm" + The Sinking Of The Estonia + The Mossad & 9/11
Tonight I watched an obscure thriller called "Baltic Storm" (2003), about the September 1994 sinking of the Estonia, an enormous passenger ferry, in the Baltic Sea as it was en route to Sweden. 852 people died in the disaster, which was front page news for many weeks afterwards. I remember that it was originally thought that the cargo door failed in heavy seas due to a storm, and water rushed in sinking the boat very quickly. The cargo door, large enough to let cars and trucks onboard, supposedly fell off due to a broken bolt. That was the story until it came out that a German newswoman named Jutta Rabe had gotten a tip from a man who claimed to be an ex-KGB agent in the hours before the Estonia left port. This man had been seeking a large sum of money for what he promised would be a big story. Rabe's producer wouldn't bite, but later that evening the ship went down with the largest peacetime loss of life since the Titanic, and Rabe contacted her source again, to see if he would work with her to get the truth out about what caused the Estonia to sink.
I would never have heard of this film had it not been mentioned in Christopher Bollyn's book "Solving 9/11", which I am currently reading. The book's premise is that the Mossad (Israeli CIA) had a direct hand in 9/11. Bollyn actually lays the entire operation at their doorstep, and while I believe that an American overseer would have been necessary for even the ultra-professional Mossad to pull off such an attack, and that the likely oversight would have been provided by the Dick Cheney/Paul Wolfowitz cabal of Neocons, Bollyn nonetheless provides ample evidence of Mossad and Zionist involvement.
It is a touchy subject to accuse Israel of anything, due to the horrific fact of the Holocaust, and that the state of Israel was formed in the aftermath as a home for the Jewish people. I did not know much about the Mossad before reading this book. I did know about militant Zionism, and I have always believed that a terrorist is a terrorist, whether it is Menachim Begin or Yassir Arafat, Saddam Hussein or Benjamin Netanyahu. Therefore, though it is not PC to say, it is still true that the militants who formed the original Zionist movement - decades before the Holocaust ever happened - were every bit the terrorists as the Arabs they would later accuse of the same thing and attack unmercifully, in the name of Israel.
Men like David Ben-Gurion, Shimon Peres, Ariel Sharon, Yitzak Shamir, and Netanyahu, each one who became a Prime Minister of Israel, were all terrorists to start with. This is just plain fact, you can research it yourself, and it is not anti-Semitic to say so. It is just naming certain men who have a violent and evil philosophy, just as we would name Dick Cheney or Lyndon Johnson here in America. Is calling those men evil anti-Anglo, or anti-Christian (even though neither Cheney nor Johnson qualifies as such)?
No, it is not anti-Anglo nor anti-Christian to call Cheney and Johnson (and many others) men of evil.
Therefore, it is not anti-Semitic to call men like Ariel Sharon, Peres and Netanyahu men of evil, because their deeds have been researched and proven beyond a reasonable doubt. To accuse them is not to accuse the Jewish people, and in fact I have a book from the library called "Rise And Kill First" by Ronen Bergman, himself an Israeli journalist, who has researched and written this 750 page expose of the Mossad, who he claims have conducted more "preemptory" assassinations than any other intelligence agency in the world, including the KGB. Bergman writes that assassination is the basis of all Mossad policy : "kill the enemy before he kills you". That's the title of the book.
So at any rate, it's important to tell the truth in this life - right? - and the truth is that the Mossad, for the most part, is pure evil. Now, there are always going to be righteous elements in any intelligence agency, like our CIA or maybe even the former KGB and the Mossad too, who feel they are doing the right thing, protecting their people by any means necessary.
But the evidence of Mossad and Zionist involvement in 9/11 is overwhelming (as is the evidence against American Neocon leaders), and there is obviously no possible justification for the murder of 3000 people on that terrible day. What happened was pure evil, and the evidence shows that it was done while a similar war game scenario was being enacted (Vigilant Guardian), and that all of the computer security was being controlled by an Israeli company called PTech, and the list is extensive. I would have had no idea of Mossad involvement had I not read this book, and you know that I am not one to subscribe to any half-baked or racially-motivated theories where these major events are concerned, like JFK or the other assassinations, or OKC, or 9/11. All I want is the truth, and I know truth when I read it, because it has a "ring" to it if it is well-researched and presented.
Truth has a ring of a truth.
At any rate, the Mossad is bad news, as is the Likud party of Israel, headed up by Netanyahu. He's every bit as rotten as Putin is in Russia (and our bad guys here in America), and in the movie "Baltic Storm", an alternative explanation is presented for the sinking of the Estonia. The reporter Jutta Rabe seeks out survivors of the sinking, who report hearing loud explosions just beforehand (like folks heard in the World Trade Center towers). She follows this up by making an attempt to sail out to the wreck site, with her crew and some divers, to photograph the sunken ship, which the Swedish government has steadfastly refused to do. And though they were intimidated while doing so, Rabe and her team secured photographic evidence of a large hole in the ship's hull, with the metal blown outward, clear evidence of an explosion. You can Google the pictures for yourself.
The reason for the sinking was because there were Russian biochemical weapons onboard the ferry, which were being smuggled out of Estonia the country along with a defecting scientist who designed the weapons. Russian ex-KGB (a now-defunct agency) wanted to prevent the scientist and the weapons from leaving, so they sunk the ship, regardless of the 852 innocent people who lost their lives in the process. Jutta Rabe mentions nothing about the Mossad in the movie, which she produced and which was based on her book about the incident. Bollyn, however, mentions in "Solving 9/11" that there was a probable Mossad connection to alerting the ex-KGB faction that the scientist, who was Jewish, was planning to escape to Sweden. Bollyn points out that Mossad will work with anyone, including Russian agencies, or German, French, whomever - and mostly British - to advance their agenda. They don't care if they've had enemy relations in the past with any nation, because they are only working for a small minority of power players in Israel and around the world in the high-level Zionist faction (funded by billionaires), and so if they can get help from Russia, so be it.
If they have to help take down the World Trade Center to start the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, so be it. Ronen Bergman in his book points out that, to the leaders of the Mossad, the means always justify the ends, no matter if innocent people are killed.
If you ever wonder why the trouble in the Middle East never stops, this is why.
Secret agencies from the US, and Israel, directing policy over there against the Palestinians. The Zionists are a racist group who want a "greater Israel" drawn up, the borders of which would be set according to supposed boundaries of 2000 years ago, which would take away land from countries all around them, just like Hitler wanted to take away land from the Czechs and Poles and Austrians.
It's all so evil. We in America support it with billions of dollars in military aid every year.
And the Mossad pays us back by doing 9/11.
Sorry about the depressing information, but I just think it's important to know what's going on in the world.
I wish, and hope and pray, that someday - maybe even soon - I will know what happened to me in September 1989.
It's hard not to know, very hard, and so that's why I study these things and write about them once in a while, because it's important to know the truth. Otherwise, life is just a meaningless charade.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
I would never have heard of this film had it not been mentioned in Christopher Bollyn's book "Solving 9/11", which I am currently reading. The book's premise is that the Mossad (Israeli CIA) had a direct hand in 9/11. Bollyn actually lays the entire operation at their doorstep, and while I believe that an American overseer would have been necessary for even the ultra-professional Mossad to pull off such an attack, and that the likely oversight would have been provided by the Dick Cheney/Paul Wolfowitz cabal of Neocons, Bollyn nonetheless provides ample evidence of Mossad and Zionist involvement.
It is a touchy subject to accuse Israel of anything, due to the horrific fact of the Holocaust, and that the state of Israel was formed in the aftermath as a home for the Jewish people. I did not know much about the Mossad before reading this book. I did know about militant Zionism, and I have always believed that a terrorist is a terrorist, whether it is Menachim Begin or Yassir Arafat, Saddam Hussein or Benjamin Netanyahu. Therefore, though it is not PC to say, it is still true that the militants who formed the original Zionist movement - decades before the Holocaust ever happened - were every bit the terrorists as the Arabs they would later accuse of the same thing and attack unmercifully, in the name of Israel.
Men like David Ben-Gurion, Shimon Peres, Ariel Sharon, Yitzak Shamir, and Netanyahu, each one who became a Prime Minister of Israel, were all terrorists to start with. This is just plain fact, you can research it yourself, and it is not anti-Semitic to say so. It is just naming certain men who have a violent and evil philosophy, just as we would name Dick Cheney or Lyndon Johnson here in America. Is calling those men evil anti-Anglo, or anti-Christian (even though neither Cheney nor Johnson qualifies as such)?
No, it is not anti-Anglo nor anti-Christian to call Cheney and Johnson (and many others) men of evil.
Therefore, it is not anti-Semitic to call men like Ariel Sharon, Peres and Netanyahu men of evil, because their deeds have been researched and proven beyond a reasonable doubt. To accuse them is not to accuse the Jewish people, and in fact I have a book from the library called "Rise And Kill First" by Ronen Bergman, himself an Israeli journalist, who has researched and written this 750 page expose of the Mossad, who he claims have conducted more "preemptory" assassinations than any other intelligence agency in the world, including the KGB. Bergman writes that assassination is the basis of all Mossad policy : "kill the enemy before he kills you". That's the title of the book.
So at any rate, it's important to tell the truth in this life - right? - and the truth is that the Mossad, for the most part, is pure evil. Now, there are always going to be righteous elements in any intelligence agency, like our CIA or maybe even the former KGB and the Mossad too, who feel they are doing the right thing, protecting their people by any means necessary.
But the evidence of Mossad and Zionist involvement in 9/11 is overwhelming (as is the evidence against American Neocon leaders), and there is obviously no possible justification for the murder of 3000 people on that terrible day. What happened was pure evil, and the evidence shows that it was done while a similar war game scenario was being enacted (Vigilant Guardian), and that all of the computer security was being controlled by an Israeli company called PTech, and the list is extensive. I would have had no idea of Mossad involvement had I not read this book, and you know that I am not one to subscribe to any half-baked or racially-motivated theories where these major events are concerned, like JFK or the other assassinations, or OKC, or 9/11. All I want is the truth, and I know truth when I read it, because it has a "ring" to it if it is well-researched and presented.
Truth has a ring of a truth.
At any rate, the Mossad is bad news, as is the Likud party of Israel, headed up by Netanyahu. He's every bit as rotten as Putin is in Russia (and our bad guys here in America), and in the movie "Baltic Storm", an alternative explanation is presented for the sinking of the Estonia. The reporter Jutta Rabe seeks out survivors of the sinking, who report hearing loud explosions just beforehand (like folks heard in the World Trade Center towers). She follows this up by making an attempt to sail out to the wreck site, with her crew and some divers, to photograph the sunken ship, which the Swedish government has steadfastly refused to do. And though they were intimidated while doing so, Rabe and her team secured photographic evidence of a large hole in the ship's hull, with the metal blown outward, clear evidence of an explosion. You can Google the pictures for yourself.
The reason for the sinking was because there were Russian biochemical weapons onboard the ferry, which were being smuggled out of Estonia the country along with a defecting scientist who designed the weapons. Russian ex-KGB (a now-defunct agency) wanted to prevent the scientist and the weapons from leaving, so they sunk the ship, regardless of the 852 innocent people who lost their lives in the process. Jutta Rabe mentions nothing about the Mossad in the movie, which she produced and which was based on her book about the incident. Bollyn, however, mentions in "Solving 9/11" that there was a probable Mossad connection to alerting the ex-KGB faction that the scientist, who was Jewish, was planning to escape to Sweden. Bollyn points out that Mossad will work with anyone, including Russian agencies, or German, French, whomever - and mostly British - to advance their agenda. They don't care if they've had enemy relations in the past with any nation, because they are only working for a small minority of power players in Israel and around the world in the high-level Zionist faction (funded by billionaires), and so if they can get help from Russia, so be it.
If they have to help take down the World Trade Center to start the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, so be it. Ronen Bergman in his book points out that, to the leaders of the Mossad, the means always justify the ends, no matter if innocent people are killed.
If you ever wonder why the trouble in the Middle East never stops, this is why.
Secret agencies from the US, and Israel, directing policy over there against the Palestinians. The Zionists are a racist group who want a "greater Israel" drawn up, the borders of which would be set according to supposed boundaries of 2000 years ago, which would take away land from countries all around them, just like Hitler wanted to take away land from the Czechs and Poles and Austrians.
It's all so evil. We in America support it with billions of dollars in military aid every year.
And the Mossad pays us back by doing 9/11.
Sorry about the depressing information, but I just think it's important to know what's going on in the world.
I wish, and hope and pray, that someday - maybe even soon - I will know what happened to me in September 1989.
It's hard not to know, very hard, and so that's why I study these things and write about them once in a while, because it's important to know the truth. Otherwise, life is just a meaningless charade.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Sunday, June 2, 2019
Going Back To The 80s with Rubix Kube and The Motels at Northridge Park
No movie tonight, but I had a lot of fun up at Northridge Park, where they were holding their annual fair, billed as "A Salute To Recreation". They've been having the fair every June for about 20 years now. In the early years and up until about 2012 it was always a big production, with a couple dozen vendor booths, many food trucks, a carnival midway with lots of games and rides, and two different music stages. I used to go up there every year just to see who was playing, and there would be some well-known tribute bands like Which One's Pink or Led Zeppagain, or Ticket To Ride. In recent years, due to city budget cuts, the fair was pared way down. I went up around 2016 and there were just a handful of vendors there, two or three lonely carnival rides and no midway. They had music, but no bands I'd ever heard of, so after that visit I stopped going.
Today, though, I drove past the park coming home from a shopping trip, and it looked like there were a lot of people there, so after I got home I walked up at around 5pm, and it looked almost like it used to. They must have gotten their budget restored, or at least most of it, because all the booths were back, the entire midway and the food court were in place, and the back of the park was crammed with rides. The only thing missing was the Hawaiian Village they used to have, with it's own vendors and musical stage.
There were a lot of people there, however, so I decided to hang out instead of going to Aliso for an evening hike, and I'm glad I stayed. A band came on a few minutes after I arrived, an 80s Tribute Band called Rubix Kube. They were an absolute blast, and before I go any further, a disclaimer is in order. If you are reading this and have known me for a long time, you will know that - in the 80s - I was pretty much a strict Metalhead and that I more or less detested all the pop music that was on the radio, all the Top 40 hits. I mean, I didn't out-and-out hate it, like I would've "hated" punk when it arrived, but I certainly owned no albums or hit singles by any bands like The Eurythmics or Simple Minds or any of that stuff.
But - and here's the catch - as the years have gone by I have developed a nostalgia for commercial 80s music. I even like the Journey hits when they come on the radio, haha. Now - mind you - I don't seek out such music, but when I hear it playing, in the supermarket or wherever I may be, I enjoy it because it evokes good feelings in me, and not only that, but I like the sonic production quality of the popular hits of the era. They had a Big Reverby Sound. Also, I have to admit in retrospect that the hooks were pretty good also. They may suffer in comparison to the superior pop of the 1960s (the greatest era for pop music ever), but all in all, the songs of the 1980s were pretty good as pop hits go.
And this band Rubix Kube was fantastic. They came out dressed in day-glo 80s garb and played all the hits, from Irene Cara ("What A Feeling") to Toni Basil ("Hey Mickey!) to Bon Jovi.
Man......I positively hated Bon Jovi in 1986, I kid you not, lol. Same with Guns N' Roses (I called 'em "Lines N' Noses").
But Rubix Kube played with such enthusiasm and professionalism (including several costume changes), that it was infectious and I found myself singing along.
Yeah, I know the words to "Don't You Forget About Me", and "Hit Me With Your Best Shot".
Thank God they didn't play any Phil Collins, but then he wasn't any fun anyway. 100% pure depression.
The 1980s were upbeat. We had Big Hair, we had Jane Fonda Workouts. Chicks wore leggings, guys wore headbands.
I mean, I didn't do any of that stuff......although I did wear a tiger-striped purple leotard when my band Disturbing The Peace played a concert at Kennedy High School in January 1982. That was my Pat Benatar look, and I've got the film to prove it haha.
I was 21 and dead serious in my musical tastes, which tended toward Rush, Van Halen and Judas Priest. Now, I like to hear the music I once disliked, just because these days I kind of like it. Nostalgia is a powerful thing, and this band Rubix Kube was really good. Look 'em up. ////
I stayed at the park as the evening wore on, and at 7:30 pm, there was a set by The Motels, who were actually a famous band in the early 80s, with Martha Davis as their lead singer. She is still doing it, and tonight her voice sounded almost exactly like it did on hit songs like "Suddenly Last Summer", "Take The 'L' " and "Only The Lonely".
I stayed to watch the fireworks at 9pm and then headed home.
I was "Walking On Sunshine", even though it was dark by then. ////
See you in church in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Today, though, I drove past the park coming home from a shopping trip, and it looked like there were a lot of people there, so after I got home I walked up at around 5pm, and it looked almost like it used to. They must have gotten their budget restored, or at least most of it, because all the booths were back, the entire midway and the food court were in place, and the back of the park was crammed with rides. The only thing missing was the Hawaiian Village they used to have, with it's own vendors and musical stage.
There were a lot of people there, however, so I decided to hang out instead of going to Aliso for an evening hike, and I'm glad I stayed. A band came on a few minutes after I arrived, an 80s Tribute Band called Rubix Kube. They were an absolute blast, and before I go any further, a disclaimer is in order. If you are reading this and have known me for a long time, you will know that - in the 80s - I was pretty much a strict Metalhead and that I more or less detested all the pop music that was on the radio, all the Top 40 hits. I mean, I didn't out-and-out hate it, like I would've "hated" punk when it arrived, but I certainly owned no albums or hit singles by any bands like The Eurythmics or Simple Minds or any of that stuff.
But - and here's the catch - as the years have gone by I have developed a nostalgia for commercial 80s music. I even like the Journey hits when they come on the radio, haha. Now - mind you - I don't seek out such music, but when I hear it playing, in the supermarket or wherever I may be, I enjoy it because it evokes good feelings in me, and not only that, but I like the sonic production quality of the popular hits of the era. They had a Big Reverby Sound. Also, I have to admit in retrospect that the hooks were pretty good also. They may suffer in comparison to the superior pop of the 1960s (the greatest era for pop music ever), but all in all, the songs of the 1980s were pretty good as pop hits go.
And this band Rubix Kube was fantastic. They came out dressed in day-glo 80s garb and played all the hits, from Irene Cara ("What A Feeling") to Toni Basil ("Hey Mickey!) to Bon Jovi.
Man......I positively hated Bon Jovi in 1986, I kid you not, lol. Same with Guns N' Roses (I called 'em "Lines N' Noses").
But Rubix Kube played with such enthusiasm and professionalism (including several costume changes), that it was infectious and I found myself singing along.
Yeah, I know the words to "Don't You Forget About Me", and "Hit Me With Your Best Shot".
Thank God they didn't play any Phil Collins, but then he wasn't any fun anyway. 100% pure depression.
The 1980s were upbeat. We had Big Hair, we had Jane Fonda Workouts. Chicks wore leggings, guys wore headbands.
I mean, I didn't do any of that stuff......although I did wear a tiger-striped purple leotard when my band Disturbing The Peace played a concert at Kennedy High School in January 1982. That was my Pat Benatar look, and I've got the film to prove it haha.
I was 21 and dead serious in my musical tastes, which tended toward Rush, Van Halen and Judas Priest. Now, I like to hear the music I once disliked, just because these days I kind of like it. Nostalgia is a powerful thing, and this band Rubix Kube was really good. Look 'em up. ////
I stayed at the park as the evening wore on, and at 7:30 pm, there was a set by The Motels, who were actually a famous band in the early 80s, with Martha Davis as their lead singer. She is still doing it, and tonight her voice sounded almost exactly like it did on hit songs like "Suddenly Last Summer", "Take The 'L' " and "Only The Lonely".
I stayed to watch the fireworks at 9pm and then headed home.
I was "Walking On Sunshine", even though it was dark by then. ////
See you in church in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
Saturday, June 1, 2019
"The Hill" starring Sean Connery + "Presenting Lily Mars" w/ Judy Garland
I'm writing from home tonight, off work for the next few days. Sorry I missed you last night. I had watched a movie and was starting to write about it, but I was having some pain in my leg from a varicose vein I have in my left calf (gross, I know), and the discomfort level was just enough to keep me from concentrating on my review. The movie was "Presenting Lily Mars" (1943), starring the one and only Judy Garland. I will add what I wrote about it, polished up a bit, at the end of tonight's blog.
The movie I watched this evening (May 31st) was a real dramatic powerhouse. It was called "The Hill" (1965), and was yet another title I found in my database search for "Warner Archive" films. "The Hill" was directed by the great Sidney Lumet, who made many notable films including "Twelve Angry Men", "Dog Day Afternoon", "Network" and "The Verdict". I was surprised, given Lumet's prestigious reputation, that I'd never heard of "The Hill". Could it have been one of his lesser works? IMDB said otherwise; it has a 7.9 rating at the website, a very high score for an obscure 54 year old motion picture. I began to watch, therefore, with great anticipation, especially as the star was Sean Connery. I've seen him in several of his early roles over the last few years and it must be said that he was much more than James Bond. In fact, he was a very good actor who could play a wide range of characters.
I was expecting a war movie, as that's what the imagery on the dvd box seemed to imply. I thought the title of the film might refer to a strategic "Hill" in a battle scenario. Instead, it was a prison movie. The prison was a military prison, however, so part of my expectation was fulfilled. Right off the bat, we know we are in for a brutal and torturous exercise, because we see The Hill in question : a pyramid shaped mound of dirt about 40 feet high, encased by stones and very steep. Looking at it as the movie opened, I was reminded of the hill that sits at the start of the Chumash Trail in Simi Valley. That hill is also made of soft, granular dirt, easy to slip on, and at the time I first hiked it, it was the steepest trail I had ever been on. In the movie, we see prisoners being ordered to run up one side of The Hill and down the other by a merciless Staff Sergeant. These are British prisoners, by the way. The English military authorities are depicted as ultra-macho, disciplinarian and unforgiving.
Enter Sean Connery, a rebellious soldier who has punched out his commanding officer in a combat situation. The prison captain and his sergeant are going to make an example out of Connery, and he knows it. Also arriving in the same prisoner shipment are a black soldier (Ossie Davis) and a sensitive young man who is there for some minor offense. He keeps a picture of his wife in his pocket and is surely going to have trouble with the extreme abuse about to be dished out to the group, for he is not cut out to be a soldier.
The Staff Sergeant (played by an actor named Ian Hendry) begins by running his new charges up and down The Hill, and ransacking their cell every night just to antagonise them. At first, he singles out Connery for extra punishment, but when he can see that Connery is not going to react or give in (i.e. weaken) under his sadistic direction, he then switches his attention to the soft-hearted Stevens (played by Alfred Lynch). For some small infraction involving the cleanliness of his prison uniform, the "Staff" (as he is called) orders Stevens to The Hill for an extensive workout under the broiling sun. I may have forgotten to mention that this prison is located in what appears to be the North African desert. The time seems to be just in the aftermath of WW2.
At any rate, this inhuman treatment of the prisoner ends with disastrous consequences, which must now be covered up by the "Staff" and his superior officer the Captain (played by Harry Andrews), who will report to the camp's medical officer that Steven's death appears to have been "accidental".
Sean Connery knows different, however, as do Ossie Davis and the rest of the prisoners in their cell. They've all taken the brunt of the Captain's wrath, as dished out by his demonic Staff Sergeant, who is a secret alcoholic and may well be off his rocker.
There is eventually going to be a confrontation about Stevens' death, as the "Staff"'s brutality gets so out of hand that the prisoners have no choice but to stand up to it. On their side is a another Staff Sergeant from a different cell block. He has witnessed what they've been subjected to and is willing to report it to the Area Commander. These decisions will cause matters to come to a head in a most explosive way.
I think that "The Hill" is one of the finest acting movies I've seen in quite a while, at least where the acting is in an ensemble and the context is highly charged. Sidney Lumet was known as a great "actor's director" as you can see from the list of Oscar-nominated films and performances on his resume. This movie does not feature an ever-changing plot - you pretty much know what the deal is from Scene One - and yet you can't take your eyes off the screen for the entire 123 minutes of the running time, due to the dramatic tension created by the cast members and also the emotionally evocative camerawork, which is constantly in motion, following the dialogue of each highlighted character, and the editing, which changes angles from face to face, sometimes they are shot from below, sometimes above or from the side. Lumet uses close-ups for maximum expression and the angles from which the characters are filmed suggest their dilemma or level of predicament in any given moment.
The attention to detail as regards the black and white camerawork and the editing is of the highest order. Another more conventional director could have made the same film in a pedestrian way. Lumet did a sensational job.
I give "The Hill" two Very High Thumbs Up, and I will add that I am sure that both Aaron Sorkin and Rob Reiner must have seen and love this film, for it's plotline and dramatic structure very much resemble Sorkin's "A Few Good Men".
There is no doubt he was influenced by Sidney Lumet's "The Hill", which preceded his film by 27 years.
"The Hill" is highly recommended, though it's rough going. But man....what great acting and direction.
Now here is just a smidgen from my aborted blog from last night :
(from 5/30/19) Tonight I watched Judy Garland in "Presenting Lily Mars" (1943), the story of a young woman from a small town in Indiana who dreams of becoming an actress on Broadway. Luckily for her, there just so happens to be a big-time stage director in town, played by Van Heflin. He spends most of his time in New York, where he lives, but he is from the same Indiana town and comes home from time to time to relax and stay with his mother, who is his manager. Lily Mars, the aspiring actress, knows all this. To make matters more complicated, Van Heflin's father was the doctor who delivered Lily when she was born.
I have to break away from my review just for a moment to ask "what would have happened if Van Heflin had formed a band before Van Halen"? Or what if Van Heflin had joined Van Halen? I mean, he couldn't have, because he died in 1971. Nevertheless, I feel that it's still something to ponder.
The plot of "Lily Mars" follows a variation of the "Star Is Born" formula, except that this film tends toward comedy rather than tragedy. You know The Formula : Judy's gonna be a Star no matter what. She's got the talent, she got the gumption, and her neighbor just happens to be a big time stage director!
She's also Judy Garland, which means she's gonna be a little bit goofy, a little bit vulnerable, a whole lot determined and overwhelmingly talented - so much so that even the terminally naysaying Heflin, who tries hard to ignore her and/or push her away, ends up falling in love.
That's the Judy Garland formula in a nutshell (at least for some of her movies), but let's face it, the formula works. It works because Judy Garland could do it all, from tear-jerking drama to pratfall comedy, and she could dance like Fred Astaire (or more accurately Ginger Rogers) and most importantly she could sing like Judy Garland.
Now, how many Stars do you know who could do all that? And on top of that, she had Movie Star Charisma for the ages.
"Presenting Lily Mars" was a formula picture but a lot of fun anyway and energetic all the way through. Bonus points for Van Heflin's comedic performance, a side you have never seen from him.
But mostly, you need to watch as many Judy Garland movies as you can. Not all at once, just once in a while, like "Meet Me In St. Louis" at Christmas, or "Easter Parade" for........Easter.
You get the idea. There were only a few Stars of her magnitude, and even in a formula picture, she always gave it her all. And that's what Hollywood is all about. /////
See you in the morning. Love through the night. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
The movie I watched this evening (May 31st) was a real dramatic powerhouse. It was called "The Hill" (1965), and was yet another title I found in my database search for "Warner Archive" films. "The Hill" was directed by the great Sidney Lumet, who made many notable films including "Twelve Angry Men", "Dog Day Afternoon", "Network" and "The Verdict". I was surprised, given Lumet's prestigious reputation, that I'd never heard of "The Hill". Could it have been one of his lesser works? IMDB said otherwise; it has a 7.9 rating at the website, a very high score for an obscure 54 year old motion picture. I began to watch, therefore, with great anticipation, especially as the star was Sean Connery. I've seen him in several of his early roles over the last few years and it must be said that he was much more than James Bond. In fact, he was a very good actor who could play a wide range of characters.
I was expecting a war movie, as that's what the imagery on the dvd box seemed to imply. I thought the title of the film might refer to a strategic "Hill" in a battle scenario. Instead, it was a prison movie. The prison was a military prison, however, so part of my expectation was fulfilled. Right off the bat, we know we are in for a brutal and torturous exercise, because we see The Hill in question : a pyramid shaped mound of dirt about 40 feet high, encased by stones and very steep. Looking at it as the movie opened, I was reminded of the hill that sits at the start of the Chumash Trail in Simi Valley. That hill is also made of soft, granular dirt, easy to slip on, and at the time I first hiked it, it was the steepest trail I had ever been on. In the movie, we see prisoners being ordered to run up one side of The Hill and down the other by a merciless Staff Sergeant. These are British prisoners, by the way. The English military authorities are depicted as ultra-macho, disciplinarian and unforgiving.
Enter Sean Connery, a rebellious soldier who has punched out his commanding officer in a combat situation. The prison captain and his sergeant are going to make an example out of Connery, and he knows it. Also arriving in the same prisoner shipment are a black soldier (Ossie Davis) and a sensitive young man who is there for some minor offense. He keeps a picture of his wife in his pocket and is surely going to have trouble with the extreme abuse about to be dished out to the group, for he is not cut out to be a soldier.
The Staff Sergeant (played by an actor named Ian Hendry) begins by running his new charges up and down The Hill, and ransacking their cell every night just to antagonise them. At first, he singles out Connery for extra punishment, but when he can see that Connery is not going to react or give in (i.e. weaken) under his sadistic direction, he then switches his attention to the soft-hearted Stevens (played by Alfred Lynch). For some small infraction involving the cleanliness of his prison uniform, the "Staff" (as he is called) orders Stevens to The Hill for an extensive workout under the broiling sun. I may have forgotten to mention that this prison is located in what appears to be the North African desert. The time seems to be just in the aftermath of WW2.
At any rate, this inhuman treatment of the prisoner ends with disastrous consequences, which must now be covered up by the "Staff" and his superior officer the Captain (played by Harry Andrews), who will report to the camp's medical officer that Steven's death appears to have been "accidental".
Sean Connery knows different, however, as do Ossie Davis and the rest of the prisoners in their cell. They've all taken the brunt of the Captain's wrath, as dished out by his demonic Staff Sergeant, who is a secret alcoholic and may well be off his rocker.
There is eventually going to be a confrontation about Stevens' death, as the "Staff"'s brutality gets so out of hand that the prisoners have no choice but to stand up to it. On their side is a another Staff Sergeant from a different cell block. He has witnessed what they've been subjected to and is willing to report it to the Area Commander. These decisions will cause matters to come to a head in a most explosive way.
I think that "The Hill" is one of the finest acting movies I've seen in quite a while, at least where the acting is in an ensemble and the context is highly charged. Sidney Lumet was known as a great "actor's director" as you can see from the list of Oscar-nominated films and performances on his resume. This movie does not feature an ever-changing plot - you pretty much know what the deal is from Scene One - and yet you can't take your eyes off the screen for the entire 123 minutes of the running time, due to the dramatic tension created by the cast members and also the emotionally evocative camerawork, which is constantly in motion, following the dialogue of each highlighted character, and the editing, which changes angles from face to face, sometimes they are shot from below, sometimes above or from the side. Lumet uses close-ups for maximum expression and the angles from which the characters are filmed suggest their dilemma or level of predicament in any given moment.
The attention to detail as regards the black and white camerawork and the editing is of the highest order. Another more conventional director could have made the same film in a pedestrian way. Lumet did a sensational job.
I give "The Hill" two Very High Thumbs Up, and I will add that I am sure that both Aaron Sorkin and Rob Reiner must have seen and love this film, for it's plotline and dramatic structure very much resemble Sorkin's "A Few Good Men".
There is no doubt he was influenced by Sidney Lumet's "The Hill", which preceded his film by 27 years.
"The Hill" is highly recommended, though it's rough going. But man....what great acting and direction.
Now here is just a smidgen from my aborted blog from last night :
(from 5/30/19) Tonight I watched Judy Garland in "Presenting Lily Mars" (1943), the story of a young woman from a small town in Indiana who dreams of becoming an actress on Broadway. Luckily for her, there just so happens to be a big-time stage director in town, played by Van Heflin. He spends most of his time in New York, where he lives, but he is from the same Indiana town and comes home from time to time to relax and stay with his mother, who is his manager. Lily Mars, the aspiring actress, knows all this. To make matters more complicated, Van Heflin's father was the doctor who delivered Lily when she was born.
I have to break away from my review just for a moment to ask "what would have happened if Van Heflin had formed a band before Van Halen"? Or what if Van Heflin had joined Van Halen? I mean, he couldn't have, because he died in 1971. Nevertheless, I feel that it's still something to ponder.
The plot of "Lily Mars" follows a variation of the "Star Is Born" formula, except that this film tends toward comedy rather than tragedy. You know The Formula : Judy's gonna be a Star no matter what. She's got the talent, she got the gumption, and her neighbor just happens to be a big time stage director!
She's also Judy Garland, which means she's gonna be a little bit goofy, a little bit vulnerable, a whole lot determined and overwhelmingly talented - so much so that even the terminally naysaying Heflin, who tries hard to ignore her and/or push her away, ends up falling in love.
That's the Judy Garland formula in a nutshell (at least for some of her movies), but let's face it, the formula works. It works because Judy Garland could do it all, from tear-jerking drama to pratfall comedy, and she could dance like Fred Astaire (or more accurately Ginger Rogers) and most importantly she could sing like Judy Garland.
Now, how many Stars do you know who could do all that? And on top of that, she had Movie Star Charisma for the ages.
"Presenting Lily Mars" was a formula picture but a lot of fun anyway and energetic all the way through. Bonus points for Van Heflin's comedic performance, a side you have never seen from him.
But mostly, you need to watch as many Judy Garland movies as you can. Not all at once, just once in a while, like "Meet Me In St. Louis" at Christmas, or "Easter Parade" for........Easter.
You get the idea. There were only a few Stars of her magnitude, and even in a formula picture, she always gave it her all. And that's what Hollywood is all about. /////
See you in the morning. Love through the night. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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