Friday, May 31, 2013
CHOOSING AN ALTERNATIVE LIFE STYLE
After Careful Deliberation, Baby Goes With Homosexuality
Labels: gay identity
ONE BREATH AWAY
Today's film was
with John Hawkes and Helen Hunt with William H. Macy.
Mark live in an iron lung. Polio.
I am not sure that they have those any more. We don't have polio which, when I was a kid, was a fearful scourge.
Mark has an itch and an interest. He decides to do some research and all but stumbles upon the idea of sex therapy.
He starts to have some sessions with a surrogate.
What ensues is the subject of this touching and tender story. There is a lot of confrontation that will take place even upon the audience member who surrenders to the film.
They skillfully guide us through the "hard parts" so that, quite quickly, nothing is strange.
Hawks and Hunt are amazing together.
There are a lot of teary moments but they are happy tears for the most part.
Beautiful.
A 4 out of Netflix5. Maybe a 5.
Labels: films
Thursday, May 30, 2013
B+ OR A-
I got my grades today for the MIT interviews I did last fall.
Yes. It is MIT. We are never, ever done with grades.
The people who read the essays that I write for each applicant get to give me a 1-5 grade on how I did.
These essays are fucking hard to do.
I go see the kid for up to an hour. I come home, I write them up in the next hour or two and that is it.
I have only rescinded a writeup one time. You go to the office and they erase the whole report and I redo it top to bottom.
It is labor intensive.
I have learned that what they want is an original piece. A plug in kind of job will not do. It is apparent when I read back over them what a plug in is. Generalities, clichés, pro forma rundowns.
They want juice. Excitement. You can get by with a dull write up but it will get a 3. I have never gotten less.
So here is how it went this year. It is the best year I have had. I average out at a 4.6 out of 5.
One 3. And I know why. I want to blame the applicant but I can't do that.
I read the report I did and I could see that it was bland and filling in the blanks. I remember the interview. The person was very smart and spoke three languages and I kind of got caught up in that and didn't explore much beyond it.
Being MIT, there is also reward mention if I get a perfect 5.0. I forget what it is. Some chart somewhere. Eternal light on the web.
I am pleased with the results and pleased that I am pleased, if you get my drift. Another sign of life.
Labels: MIT
SAD SONGS
Today's film was Ira Sach's
There are a lot of characters in this film about adult love and betrayal.
The blues, surely. Memphis, where it takes place. The music business in all its superficial grandeur. And three lonely people, a father, a son and, well a live in girlfriend, wife and mom to a second son.
Rip Torn, Darren Burrows and Dina Korzun play out the painful realities of lives lived in public, in private and on the side.
The older son, a bit of a successful failure, visits his dad, a fading record producer, and his Russian born mate.
There are side issues but what we really have is a blues song played for real by the wonderful actors.
It is tough to watch as grown up people have to come to terms with where they have come from, where they are and where they want to be.
But they are all stuck. And come to know it.
Sachs is a master of the fast scene, the brutal cut, the tight in camera that catches what is going on inside the people as well as the outside. He bears close watching and we will be rewarded.
Rip Torn is a force of nature when he is most controlled. He is an old man now, my age, playing a man twenty years younger here. Old enough to realize he has gone as far as he is going to go and wise enough to take the load on as a result. He exudes his disappointment out of public sight but played out with the people most close to him.
Dina Korzun is actually, I think, the star. She has bought into an arrangement that seems to good to be true and she is finding that it is not true. She is a stranger in a strange land.
Darren Burrows is caught as the proverbial underachieving son of a successful public man. He tries to escape. Too late.
Blah blah. Too much talk about what is seen and felt watching. A great picture. 4 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
REASONS
There has been a lot of talk about Michelle Bachman's decision not to run.
All of it has been focused on her winnability.
This puts the emphasis on what really is going on here.
Michele Bachmann's Stinging Defeat
Here Mike Signoreli points out that Bachman was beaten in battle. Badly.
She led the forces of hate and lost.
A bigot who got "outed".
The forces that were unleashed against her shameless homophobic posturing as well as the other "causes" she represented is what did her in. And the strident, active opposition of her victims.
Labels: republican whack jobs
BACK IN BUSINESS
Back to the gym this morning.
I must have been excited, I woke up at 2:45, 15 minutes early.
People were glad to see me. I was glad to see them. Not everyone was there so I will get a little more attention tomorrow.
I was told to take it easy, first by my John and then by my good friend John who I saw there first thing.
I kept the bike at half the usual "effort" and did my Tuesday workout, chest, triceps and abs, which is the least pushy.
I was able to do all the crunches I usually do.
Good news.
I have worn shorts all day. Nice. Glad to be back.
Labels: gym
HITCH HIKER
Today's movie is the first of four Ira Sachs' films that I will be watching.
Forties rich. The sets and costumes overflow with the genuine feel of the times. In movies. I was there. Both the real and the reel.
This story about a husband and wife and a best friend and a mistress for the husband, soon to be a girl friend for the best friend, is straight out of the films of the time and, with a twist of homicide in the air, it doesn't fall too far from the kind of film that Hitchcock turned out once a year.
There is a bimbo, but a pretty one. There is playing around with poison.
There is even a shifty hitchhiker (get it hitch?) which would be an ideal mcguffin, the clue that the master always threw in to keep us off balance.
There is one more similarity and that is the movie's coldness. No heat. Even the romancing is bloodless and routine.
There are clever bits inserted here and there to underscore the plot. A man on the street trips and strews papers all over a sidewalk, a screenplay perhaps?
It was fun to watch. Patricia Clarkson is the wife. Love watching her. Chris Cooper, the husband. Pierce Brosnan the "best" friend and Rachel McAdams is the near bimbo.
I liked it. I won't see it again but I will remember it.
A 3 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
FREE AT LAST
That is a word that I hope not to have to type again.
I got a complete kit, introductory. Lessons. A CD. Soon I will try them out.
And so on.
The biggest news is that I am in shorts as I type and I will be at the gym bright and early tomorrow morning. All my friends. And the workout for Wednesday.
Back to a more or less normal way of life.
I am tired of talking about it and I am sure you are tired of listening.
I don't see the Doc for three months.
SATIRE WITH A SHARP EDGE
Today's NYTimes Pick film was Elia Sulieman's
This is the followup to the film we saw yesterday. The same ideas about the Palestine/Israeli situation. This one is a personal history. His mom and dad through the period 1948 to the present.
Played out in vignettes, some repetitive. Some clear. Some baffling. But all of a piece.
I cried at the end.
And it is not "that kind of movie".
At times it seems that even battle scenes are so stylized that they are a bit cartoon like. But the bite is always hardest with these heavy light pieces.
I admire this kind of film making more than I like it. If you know what I mean.
While I would not want to see it again, it really rates a 4 out of Netflix5 if not more. Words like stunning and impactful don't quite do it. I am grasping for a word.
Labels: films
Monday, May 27, 2013
WHERE THERE IS SMOKE.....
So it seems that some of the IRS investigations, while perhaps a bit hard and blunt, were about groups who sought non-profit status but were actually engaged in campaign activity. I figured.
Non Profit Applicants Chafing at IRS Tested Political Limits
In other words, they were asking for it.
After all, we know that the IRS questioned some churches and larger institutions who were engaged in financing or otherwise helping campaigns. Why not these little guys.
This is going to end up being another example of right wing over reaching. Hoist by their own petard.
Labels: tea party
BOOK REPORT
I have finished the non-fiction reflection essays, essays on writing essays,
To Show and Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction by Philip Lopate (2012)
Lopate is an essayist and teacher and has put together this tutorial and reflection about "serious" writing. Isn't all writing serious? No.
I got this because I liked the review I read and because I do a lot of writing. Here and there.
I got a lot out of the book but not what I expected.
I am not looking to change my style any time soon and this blog is not actually literary non-fiction. But it was a nice walk in the park with a guy who can squeeze the feeling that fiction gives a reader out of his practice of essays.
This is because he believes in making himself a "character" from whom the reader can learn something s/he never knew before.
He likes the idea of both showing and telling. Why shortchange oneself, and proceeds to bash a few other icons in the process.
He points out that the most interesting non-fiction writing is where the writer sets out to be contrary in some way to conventional wisdom.
I can get down with that.
This was toilet reading so it went on for quite a long time. I was glad to get to the end because I wanted to read his actual real essays in another book. Coming soon but not too soon. I seldom read serially.
The other book I just finished was Call Me by Your Name by Andre Acimin (2007)
I read this before when it came out and since I wanted to get Acimin's latest novel I decided, as I will, to get all of his work and read it up to the latest.
This is a story of longing and it aches with sensuality. Need. Frustration and consummation. Then, regret. But happy regret.
A young man falls in love with a summer boarder. His dad takes in writers working on a book, a dissertation. When Oliver arrives it starts. Elio, the younger man, is smitten. But resists.
Yes they are gay. An incidental fact but one which through its slightly transgressive nature (gay, younger older, and so on) slows the process of mutual seduction down to a snails pace.
It is beautifully written in an idyllic location and nothing bad happens. Nothing. What a relief. We see the story through the memory of the older version of the younger man so it is a memoir.
It is very sexy in its way, these people move much more slowly in their time than we might in this era. So there is a lot of pentup energy behind the connections that are made.
In his essay “Pensione Eolo,” Aciman writes, “Ultimately, the real site of nostalgia is not the place that was lost or the place that was never quite had in the first place; it is the text that must record that loss.” In other words, Elio and Oliver might give each other up, but the book that conjures them doesn’t give up either one. In fact, it brings them back together, reunites them, for a glorious endless summer. In the book, the river can be revisited. The closing words echo the title: a phrase simultaneously of elegy and of invitation.It is not porn of course, and is probably not erotica either. It is a simple story of a complicated process of desire and attraction and how it might work mutually.
Great writing.
I remembered some of it but had "forgotten" the denouement. So I got to relive the delicious sensations of this kind of mind, body, soul attraction.
I am moving on to the next novel by Kent Haruf which involves the same small Colorado town and some of the people who live there. And some new situations too.
Labels: books
NO MAIL
It is Monday afternoon and I have had enough of the long weekend. Capped off by no mail.
Memorial is OK. People say "Happy Memorial Day"? Huh? It isn't supposed to be happy is it?
When I was a kid it was a half a school day and on the day that it fell. Not a Monday holiday. We went in and there was a parade. We marched or were bussed to a local graveyard.
Two guys from the Township had been killed in the war and so, every year, there was a kind of special tribute to them. Our only dead heroes.
There were a lot of live heroes like my Dad who wore the war with him until his last day. But we went after the dead ones.
A part of every celebration was the recitation of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
I got the honor one year. It was my first realization that I was not good at memorization. A tendency to improvise.
But I think I got through the whole thing pretty well.
Memorial Day is a holiday without any fun attached to it. Not that Martin Luther King Day is a recreational bonanza.
A little later today there will be a parade in town and we will get a fly over. Or maybe that is Veterans Day.
I suppose all my reflexes are wrong or not working around holidays because except for the big ones it was likely that I would be traveling to some job where I needed to be there the night before. Setup and sleep.
So holidays kind of blended in with other days.
It will be over soon and I can move on.
SILENT MOVIE
Today's film, Palestinian Elia Suleiman's
Divine Intervention: A Chronicle of Love and Pain (2002)
is not silent, per se, but has all the elements of pantomime and silent comedy.
Taken at three locations in the Palestinian Israeli mish mash, people act out small vignettes that have to do with every day life.
Perhaps these can be construed as a metaphor for political issues. One entire segment centers around an Israeli checkpoint. But it is putting too much weight on it. Or, perhaps too little.
These are, after all, everyday situations of neighborly competition and cooperation.
A man provokes the authorities until they act, then uses the opportunity to attack them. On one ten.
A neighbor throws his garbage into another neighbor's yard. She throws them back in his yard. Four guys are seen beating something just out of sight. A person? No. A snake. Dead before he finally gets the burning gasoline treatment. Overkill.
See? They make no sense in isolation.
But shown together, in sequence, they somehow make a statement of life's absurdities as well as the pleasures.
There is a great spot where, at the checkpoint, a soldier comes and makes a kind of night club act out of stopping and inspecting the cars. It makes about the same sense as the day to day business of the checkpoint does.
I liked it. There is no story. No point that I could discern. Just a collection of small acts of absurdity, some cruelty and occasional kindness.
A great sequence where the red balloon film is given a tribute as another red balloon flies over Jerusalem. It has Arafat's picture on it and lands on the Temple on the Mount. Last laugh.
Winner of some juried Cannes prizes.
I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
Sunday, May 26, 2013
TIGER TIGER BURNING BRIGHT
Today's film was Ang Lee's
A kid, a shipwreck with animals on board, a boy on a boat.
I suppose everyone has heard about this film.
There is a lot going on here and some of it gets in the way. The religious quest stuff is a bit ponderous when what we have is a good "lost at sea" yarn, a shipwreck and survival.
That the survivors are a boy and a tiger makes this different. A buddy movie it is not. The tiger is the real thing. Well, all digital, but a wild animal.
I have to admit that the special effects are so good that I bought into it.
I could have done with some of the yakking around the story.
There is a lot of stuff early on about the law of the jungle and who eats who. Hyenas get a bad rap.
Great execution and it plays pretty well on the smaller screen even though it is obviously built for the big big 3D view.
Ang Lee almost always surprises and this is no exception.
I would give it a 3 on plot and story and a 4 for the cinematography out of Netflix5. Some beautiful stuff comes through.
The experience is similar to the feature length cartoons of yesteryear. We cannot escape admiring the technology which takes us out of the drama. Creates a distance.
But everything in film is a construct so I am quibbling.
Labels: films
Saturday, May 25, 2013
MORES
Today's film was the Korean
with Isabelle Huppert. A long time favorite of mine.
She is a French woman visiting a small town in Korea. She encounters a group of people. There are three scenarios. The same people, some same circumstances, different outcomes. Some shape shifting within the scenarios.
In other words, cinematic fun.
The whole thing is an exercise in perceptions and how small things can alter a situation.
English is the common language here but as Huppert (Anne) does not speak Korean there is amusing byplay as the Koreans comment on her and each other without her knowing.
There is one role which is consistent, a hunky lifeguard. All others shift.
You know that I love this kind of thing and so I rate the movie quite highly. Very enjoyable. Fun and funny. Others may be bored or put out by ambiguities. The need to know what is going on is not satisfied entirely.
I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
Friday, May 24, 2013
AFTERMATH
It's funny.
The visit to the doctor didn't turn out to be much different than I imagined but there is still a great sense of relief at having the results laid out and a plan put into effect.
I have a very mild concern that somehow I won't know how to do the procedure but that is just normal stage fright.
I am sure that I will be able to.
The great sense of relief is like the relaxation after a long race or a job that is finally over.
A weight is lifted.
I don't want to analyze it too much but I am happy to feel whatever it is that has gone through me this evening.
I will show up on Tuesday very motivated and eager to get started.
And, I will be off to the gym Wednesday morning.
With shorts on.
All day.
Labels: happiness
WATT?
I saw my first Volt today.
It is parked out front the GM dealer in Cathedral City.
White. Says "VOLT" in big black letters.
Will they take those off if I buy it?
39,000 dollars. Not bad.
Look.
I am not interested in cars. But this caught my attention.
I don't think it would work for us. Booker wouldn't like being in the back seat.
Out here we are aswim in Priuses. I have never ever considered getting one of those.
I don't know why this was so exciting.
I guess that is why they put it out on the 111.
Labels: automobiles
PIPING
I went to the Urologist today and reviewed the results of my tests taken over the last several weeks.
It turns out that I still have some bladder function but not enough to be self sufficient. I think I knew that but this confirms.
So there is an option of opening up the pipe through the prostate to see if I could get a functioning bladder back. 70-80% that the procedure would work. If it does not, I would still need to self catheterize. If it does I might need to self catheterize occasionally.
So I am letting the operation or "procedure" option sit on the back burner and will go next Tuesday to learn how to do my own procedure. Every four or five hours depending on water intake. It is pretty simple. The gear is straightforward. I already "took lessons" on YouTube. These will be one on one. It is pretty common.
If it doesn't work for me or I decide to go ahead with the operation I can do it at my leisure and not rush it in.
Also I get the bag off my leg.
Gym and shorts and a normal life can resume. I will be on my bike at Golds Wednesday morning.
They didn't want to do the lessons today nor did I as we are heading into a weekend and a holiday weekend at that.
I think it is good news. I knew there were not going to be any miracle cures.
Besides, they say that old timers should have hobbies and work with their hands. Mind body practice.
Labels: urology
TIGHT OFFENSE
Obama just made two canny appointments which fly right into the face of the Benghazi fake scandal.
Obama Defies Critics With State Dept Choice
Victoria Nuland helped prepare the "talking points" everyone is obsessing about as if it mattered.
She has the interesting background of being a Bush appointee who worked with Cheney.
Another thing about her. See her eyebrow? She can do the one eyebrow lift which falls outside the talents of most people. My family has the gene if that is what it is. We can lift brow with the best. Her one brow expertise is so good that it is mentioned in the GoogleImage selections under her name.
This is what I like about Obama. He will press them up close and give them what they want with a twist that they do not want. The consummate player.
Labels: Administration Obama
INVOKED
The Supremes are taking up the issue of prayer openings for town meetings.
Justices Take Case on Prayer at Town Board Meetings
They are late to the party.
I was the Moderator of the Plymouth MA Town Meeting for several years in the late 60s, early 70s. The first thing that I did was to stop the "invocations" which opened all the sessions.
There wasn't much of a furor. In fact, I don't think anyone objected. Not to me.
A handful of sky pilots had shown up and opened every Meeting, as far as I knew, since the Pilgrims had the same annual get together.
I felt it was just wrong. The previous guy had a setup with all the Prots and Catholics. He was a Jew so there was always a rabbi.
I did cause a scuffle when someone thought I was going to ditch the Pledge of Allegiance but that was not on my list of changes. I would have been strung up.
I am surprised to see that invocations are still given widely and that people, mostly the christians, are surprised there would be any objection to it.
Since it is part of their normal way of life they don't see it as inappropriate or as a kick in the pants of non-believers. Or believers in something other than what they believe.
Good luck Supremes. You will be up to here in yakkity yak about freedom of religion and how it applies to the ones who want to cram their beliefs down other people's throats.
Freedom to do their thing not mine.
Labels: christist watch
Thursday, May 23, 2013
PRE MUSICAL
Today's movie was the UK film
The scion of a shoe company finds that his warehouse is filled with orders for a bankrupt customer. What to do?
In the course of an evening he saves a drag queen from being beat up and s/he takes him in to the club where she is the star.
In the process, he finds that the boots that drag queens wear are designed for women not men. Weight.
One thing leads to another and he enlists the drag queen to help him design a line of drag boots, shoes and other ornaments for the cross dressing audience.
Unlikely you would say. Me too. But it all fits right in as we watch this clever, fast moving story.
All kinds of problems ensue which are worked out just in the nick of time.
This film is the basis for the Broadway show and you can see how it all works beautifully to that end.
It does stand on its own however and is quite enjoyable.
I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
WIN A LITTLE LOSE A LITTLE
The bleating has already started about the immigration legislation now passing along through the Senate.
Uber-liberals and the gay lobby are stunned to find that special LGBT provisions will not be included.
But wait a minute. Are we interested in human rights to the nth degree here or are we interested in a political process working in a bipartisan manner.
Have Dems Sold Out Too Early? Not If They Want Something to Actually Pass.
I am not a special interest. I have special interests and as a gay man want the most out of the system that I can get.
And I want it now.
But, realistically, I know that if there is to be gay justice in the immigration laws, we need a revamped immigration law first.
Get in line guys.
Besides if the DOMA is thrown out we are in the new law. Period. If it isn't than we will go back to the same committee and put it in as needed.
Another instance where we must work from our heads and not our hearts. Hard to do but we are very good at that and have won every time we worked the political magic.
Labels: gay rights, immigration
HIDDEN FROM VIEW
Today's film was Arnon Goldfinger's
When Goldfinger's Israeli grandmother dies, the family explores her hoarded possessions. It seems that she kept everything from her past while, at the same time, never telling the family much about it.
There are many surprises including a long pre and post war relationship with a Nazi couple who she and her husband visited back and forth on many occasions both in Israel (Palestine) and Germany.
A weird partnership between Zionists and the Nazis is uncovered.
This is a detective story and we see the interviews that proceed from a fairly simple idea of what happened to a much more complex recognition that in some respects, Germans are always Germans whether Jews or not and that many painful realities are better not discussed in the present.
In fact, live in the present and do not ask about the past. But still, Grammy did keep all those fascinating letters and pictures.
The World War II period including the Holocaust are now being investigated by the third generation of Jews and Germans. Goldfinger is in this cohort.
There is a lot of obvious denial and more than a little "looking for trouble" in this film. It is pretty good. But, in the end, unsatisfying because truth is elusive and even in the face of truth many people do not want to know it.
Goldfinger's mother asks "What for?".
To those of us who are outside this ring of history it is interesting to watch and wonder how we might be reacting to similar discoveries.
God knows there are enough secrets in my own extended family that it took a cousin and I about 6 months to unravel our own perceptions about what happened here and there and why. Until we exhausted ourselves on the topic.
I enjoyed watching this and I liked Goldfinger quite a bit.
He is a kind and gentle bloodhound who keeps on working to sniff the truth out.
I will give this movie a 3 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
LATTER DAY GAYS
Today's film was
A young Mormon goes on his mission with another more experienced elder and in the companionship of the mission they fall in love.
Each has had prior experience as a gay man but, somehow, have been able to suppress the fact that the Mormons don't like to have gay missionaries or, for that matter, gay members.
This is a twist on the usual idea that a Mormon discovers he is gay and is stuck in the identity crisis.
In this case both young men, one more than the other, somehow expected to slide by the rules but the fact of their relationship takes things to a crisis point.
This is not the first film about gay Mormons. The extremely popular Latter Days comes at it from a different direction.
This film is more respectful, in a way, of the seriousness of the mission, the young men who want to be good Mormons and the kind of interaction missionaries have with their prospects.
This makes it a little boring on the drama end. But it shows how the deep roots of belief can operate in conflict with the deep roots of sexuality.
I do not imagine that this would be a very popular "gay film" and it certainly could not be a popular Mormon film. It falls between but has its own distinct message.
The guys in the film are very good at carrying the necessary balance of faith and feeling.
I know some gay Mormons and there is never a happy outcome to this confusion. The Mormons are not going to move, the Mormon closet is very unhappy, and the gay men or women who find themselves leaving the family based religion experience a lot of pain.
It would be easy to say that the hocus pocus of the church should be obvious, just come out. But the Mormons have wisely embedded their belief in daily family life. To leave the church is to leave one's family.
There is an even tone to all of this film. Kind of a flat line. I actually liked the quietness. It helped me relate and be a part of it.
I am glad that I saw it. It was educational in a good way. I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5.
Monday, May 20, 2013
BUDDIES
Having said what I said just below about John McCain, I should also point to this. Obama's Newest Ally John McCain
After four years of back and forth spatting, I have recently seen how McCain is spending more time at the White House and has also spoken out on issues that he and Obama share an interest in. Gun control. Immigration. Leak detection.
It is an interesting turn about not without precedent in the past. Politics makes strange bedfellows.
The statesmen of the GOP are deeply embarrassed and chagrined at the way their party has been hijacked. In addition, the formal leadership, Boehner and McConnell are all but useless. Frozen in time and space by the factions in the Party. They are not very good leaders. They lack the talent. The knack.
I still don't like John McCain very well but if anyone can turn him into a useful ally it would be Obama.
Another thing about McCain is that somewhere inside there, the maverick is pacing back and forth ready to make a reappearance. The perverse streak that has pissed off more Republicans than Democrats is just below the surface.
Labels: Administration Obama, McCain
LOOKING FOR TROUBLE
The press is aboil with stuff about the IRS, Benghazi, AP and other "scandals" too numerous to mention.
This is a sign of it being a slow news period.
Today's Oklahoma twister may overshadow a lot of this nonsense but don't count on it.
Maybe I am not trying but I cannot follow it all.
It is micro-reporting at its worst.
In general, I have a few impressions.
The first is that rightly or wrongly, the IRS had an operation to smoke out those organizations that were using charity cover for what were actually campaign finance operations.
The fine print says that this involved liberal as well as the conservative types of groups but, in reality, there are many many more conservative ops than liberal simply because the right is so fractious. We are not reading this. We are reading about the victimization of the tea bag people. It ignites their rages about "freedom" and so on.
On Benghazi, long ago, I decided that it was a tragic loss. There should have been more security but there was not. A mistake. Parsing the words of the President or the UN Ambassador's characterization of the attacks seems to me to be simply stirring up shit.
There are terrorists. All kinds. What do we call them? How do we know when there are real terrorists and accidental terrorists? All bullshit noodling. You can lay a lot of this on McCain and the southern sissy who ought to know better. McCain is still a sore loser if not just a plain all around loser and Lindsay Graham is just a plain middle of the road senator (a good thing actually) burnishing his bonafides on the right so he doesn't get a primary challenge.
The rest of them? Standard GOP bloviators.
The AP thing? Standard government versus press tensions. There are leaks. They should be plugged.
He is in trouble with the left and the right on this but, oddly, more the left. Even Mitch McConnell gave him some support on this yesterday.
I am impressed with this result below.
Obama's Support Steady During Firestorm
In fact he has increased his approvals by as much as 4 points.
Shows that I am not the only one to see through all this trouble making. Mischief. Politics as usual.
GOP Scandal Mongering Making Obama More Popular GOP Much Less So
I liked this headline better. Article is about the same.
Labels: media, republican whack jobs
MAMAS BOY
Today's movie was the Danish
A huge body builder lives with his domineering mother.
He has no friends outside the gym. No girls. Mom thinks she is his girl in that sort of sick dependent way that some mom's get for their sons. Surrogate husbands. I speak from experience. There are no boundaries she even barges into the bathroom while he is there.
His uncle has gone to Thailand and obtained a wife. With the uncle's advice and support the builder goes off on a trip, lying to mom about where and what.
He tries to be a sex tourist but fails miserably. Shy and inept. And he doesn't want the sex so much as some warmth. Not a lot of that from a whore even in Thailand.
But, he meets a woman at the gym. They connect. Awkward cringeworthy courtship ensues.
Then what?
He has to come home and face momma.
This is a very touching film. This guy is enormous and dominates every scene but he is small in his personality. All shy men with bitches for mothers will identify.
I liked this film a lot. No drama really. Just progress. Growth. You can't beat that.
I don't know why it is called "teddy bear".
I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
Sunday, May 19, 2013
POETRY
Today's film was the NYTimes Critics' Pick
Two friends set out with the one man's dead wife to return her to her ancestral grave.
They talk. They remember. They carry out their traditions.
This is a beautiful film. Photography clear as a bell. But it has no pretenses.
I liked it very much. There is no describing it except to say that the memories come to them as they drive and we get to see them vividly.
As it turns out the men are bound together in ways they cannot yet understand.
I would not mind seeing this again. It is totally quiet and engaging. Irresistible. A 4 out of Netflix5.
PASSING
My Dad died today. 1988. Twenty five years ago.
It doesn't seem that long at all.
He is a daily presence for me.
Many experiences that I have touch off a memory of one kind or another.
More and more I find myself doing things his way or believing certain things that he believed. Fervently. He was a strong believer.
He had a level of certainty about right and wrong that he was willing to share directly. He was not a guy for playing softball.
His opinions covered a wide range of experience. On the outside, he was a life long Democrat with an inherent suspicion of any other affiliation.
He had a strong belief in God but not the one that people keep all tightly wrapped up in their churches. He was not taken in by the devout or the interpreters of God's word. He did go to church in his later years to please my mother but it was clear that was the deal.
He had no patience for the "mealy mouthed". Most usually described as those "mealy mouthed bastards". He liked people who were clear and honest.
He had all the virtues. Most acquired through experience. Lying was unknown. It was also not tolerated.
My kids think, perhaps, that I invented the idea that "life is not fair". That was my Dad talking. He didn't think life was unfair either. It was just life. Fair was something we went to in the fall and looked at the farmer exhibits. Maybe it had to do with some form of honor but I think that he believed those concepts to be bullshit.
He was a self made man. Ass kissing was not in his DNA. While he worked for a large company and did his job as a manager as best he could he would not suck up.
He believed in work for its own sake. A good job done.
He was not taken in by the relatives just because they were of the same blood. He helped me to see that family didn't necessarily coincide with the designated parties but could include people who had no branches whatsoever with the family tree.
My Dad could swear better than any other man that I have ever met and I have had some real virtuoso friends. It wasn't so much the variety of his words but the intensity.
He was a patriot. He went and joined the Navy in 1943 because he had to do his part. He had a deferrable job but he couldn't sit on the sidelines. He saw stuff that stayed with him all his life. Bad dreams kind of stuff. And he was a Sailor. The Marines like to think they are lifelong, a fine tradition. They got it from their naval cousins.
When he met my husband and found that John had been in the Navy, the pictures came out and the stories began.
I fought with him much of my life and, at the end, he told me how pleased he was that I was happy. That I had fought for and gained an identity and purpose he was deeply proud of. And this was with my husband in the next room.
It is highly unlikely that he used those words. But that is what I got. It was all there.
I told you he was clear about his opinions.
Best of all, by the time he was dying, we had learned to really hug one another.
On his last day, I was able to get into the hospital bed with him and hold him tight. I got to tell him that it was OK to go. And that I was so proud and happy that he had been such a wonderful father to me.
I know he heard me.
Labels: fathers
SMALL TOWNS
I have just finished Kent Haruf's
This is a story told simply. And there are great depths under every simple phrase. A small fictional town, Holt, Colorado and a few of its citizens have lives that are rich and touching at every line and paragraph.
Haruf is a very skillful writer who has put down all the post modern bullshit and returns to real people with realistic, if challenging, lives.
It is pastoral and it is lively.
He has written three novels about this town and some of the same people. This is the first.
The scheme is basically about individuals who find each other in the course of their daily lives. Span of time is one year.
There is a connection between all of them which grows and enriches.
Reading this novel was so peaceful. And, there were situations which were very exciting too.
A school teacher with two sons, the sons (always together), a young girl who gets pregnant by accident, two old men who are brothers (always together), another school teacher single woman who is instrumental.
Try this one. I bet you will want to read the next two books too.
But not right away. This is one of those books that I love and I will not gorge on them. I will ration it out to extend the pleasure. I will think about these people while I read something else and then go back to see the next time.
Labels: books
Saturday, May 18, 2013
COOK OUT
Today's film was the NYTimes Critics' Pick documentary
Entre Le Bras / Step Up to the Plate (2012)The inventor of an entire cuisine, Michel Bras, turns his restaurant over to his son Sebastien.
Gentle and peaceful as the process is, there is that nice tension between father and son which all fathers (and sons) will appreciate.
I am not a "foodie". So I don't relate much to the dishes which are the ultimate in what I think of as "toy food". I am just not interested in it. But there are a lot of interesting scenes where they do things with food that I never imagined.
It is a nice film, I am glad I saw it and good luck to them all. Nice people.
There is nothing wrong with being nice. A 3 out of Netflix5.
ON WRITING
Since I write a lot I am, by implication, very interested in writing itself.
Or should be.
I really liked this article on the dictionary, the meaning of words and the utility of being able to write beyond the dictionary meanings.
The Role of a Dictionary Today
Mundanity is the curse of an interesting blog or, for that matter, a food label or a line of copy in an ad. A come hither look is needed for the reader's attention.
What is needed is a stick. Something to stiffen the line, the copy.
To bring interest to the page.
I try for that but it is difficult. Trying makes it a labor. Better not to try and let it fly.
First, my writing history is quasi-academic. I wrote training manuals for years. No allowance for poetry. Literally thousands of people would read these things and take explicit action in their lives based on what they read. It had to be taken seriously.
It also had to be taken readably. We lived by the Fogg, the readablity measures.
Every day was a day of conflict with a copy editor and the copy editor's questions.
I sometimes write from a crouch position.
Check that sentence. It just came out. Is "crouch" the write / right word?
I will not look it up. I am just happy to have had it come through my own editor, through my fingers and on to the page.
My mind's editor wants to modify it now. To put in the word "defensive" so the reader will not have to work to get the picture. But then it would be wrong because that kind of crouch is not the only kind of crouch I have in mind.
I want a picture to form. The more explicit I become the less evocative.
I like to, on occasion, invent a word. Some normal usage twisted.
No example leaps to mind. It is usually a "found" word. Another through the brain into the fingers out to the keyboard event. A surprise.
Fancy words. Out. That is not what we are talking about here. If I have to look it up it is probably too fancy although I do have a rather wide vocabulary. But it is possible to make a common every day word dance a bit. Used slightly out of rhythm. A bounce. A chance mis-spelling.
There is the inhibition of performance. This is not improv. I can take what comes out of my fingers and just let it go. Like throwing mud up on the wall and watching it slide off. But that is something else entirely and is probably a matter of poetry.
I am currently reading a kind of text book by Phillip Lopate on essay writing. He doesn't spend much time, so far, on word choice. Maybe before I am done.
I mention it to illustrate that somewhere, somehow, there is always a reading, a thought, a consideration of style in my life. A book, an article like this one. Words. How to use them more effectively.
The worst hurdle of all is being self conscious about my writing. And this blog post is not helping.
Time to quit. Point made. Move on.
Oh. Dictionaries. I rarely use them to find a word for my writing. I use them a lot to understand others' writing. I keep finding new things. The actual meaning of "penultimate" for example. A recent discovery that I have been using the word incorrectly all my writing or reading life. Not that it comes up that often. But it is a rare bird and fun to use. If I can, actually, understand it correctly.
Friday, May 17, 2013
CRIME DOES NOT PAY
Today's film was the Swedish crime thriller
Pedal to the metal. An MBA student, too smart for his own good, passes for a higher society guy. He is actually a boy from the provinces. Who keeps photos of professional models in his dorm room to emulate the high style.
On the other hand, he has a job as a limo driver which leads to being a dealer and doer of other small chores that will make him enough cash to keep himself in clothes. And in the high life. Joel Kinnamon. Hot.
He is "asked" by the limo boss to pick up a guy who, it turns out, has just escaped from prison. A lot of bucks to do that. He and the escapee become buddies.
Then one thing leads to another and he is in deeper than he expected but still being a hustler with the gang. Not a good idea.
He uses his knowledge of the banking business to promote a money laundering scheme. Somehow he ends up on the wrong end of some intergang warfare as well as another scheme to rip the "good guys" off.
There is a lot going on here and it moves very quickly.
It is interesting that there is not one good guy in this film. No cop, no hero.
Have you noticed that the new really bad guys are the Serbians? Yes. They will fucking eat you up.
This film is not for everyone as it is the kind of film that requires you to take a side. This is done very cleverly.
The guy, the smart guy, is so sleekly handsome that he squeaks. We, I did, fall under his thrall just as a lot of people do. But there are other characters to feel for too. The escapee / buddy and another guy who has a little girl and has to kind of take her along for the meets required to do the crime thing.
I admire the film a great deal. In the beginning it is genuinely confusing but, eventually, the three guys we want to kinda sorta get away with it, emerge and we are on our way.
This is good enough that that the Hollywood bastards are going to make an American version. With Zach Efron. Good luck.
I would not mind seeing this again so it is a 4 out of Netflix 5. I would definitely want to find another film where Joel Kinnamon is playing. Just to watch him.
This particular film is one of three to be produced under the title of Swedish Noir. I await the next one.
Labels: films
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
MORE MORE MORE
So now there are 12 marriage equality states.
They lit up this bridge in Minneapolis last night. The I-35 Bridge.
Labels: marriage equality
FUNNY LOSERS
I just finished reading
Middle Men: Stories by Jim Gavin.
You know these guys. Maybe you have been one once.
If you still are one of these guys you might still enjoy the book.
"These guys" are the ones who are smart and funny and see the world in an insightful way. They have pretty good bullshit detectors.
But they have not connected. They are having trouble with work. Or school. Or marriage.
They are career underachievers.
They are the guys you might hang out with in bars listening to their hard luck stories.
A guy who wants to be a standup comic but his act sucks. And he knows it.
A guy who sells toilets to house builders and doesn't know the first thing about the product.
I know. It sounds drab. But Gavin captures them in a way that makes them special. They shine. As losers, they are, in fact spectacular. Their greatest success.
He does not condescend. They are valued.
All of these guys are from Southern California which probably encourages this kind of slacker life style. There are just enough dead end jobs or pit stops in the service economy to keep them with enough change in their pockets but they are not going anyplace.
You will want to shake them and say "wake up".
I am not much of a fan for the short story but these are just right.
Look at that picture. That is Gavin. I can imagine that his characters look just about like him. The same slight smirk and what the hell glint in his eyes.
He is a natural serious humorist.
Labels: books
SURFERS!!!
When there are cries of "surf's up" that means there will be surfers.
I am a long time fan of surfer movies. I think that I have seen them all.
Some twice.
But it has been a long, dry spell since the likes of The Endless Summer (1966).
I consulted a "best of" list and the last surfer movie was a cartoon of a surfing penguin in 2007.
So, great news.
Today's film was a biopic of the late great surfer Jay Moriarity and his mentor Rick Hesson.
a project produced by and starring Gerard Butler as Hesson.
There is a lot of plot for a simple surfing story which actually has more drama in itself than we can imagine. Surfing is laid back on shore but pretty heavy duty once it gets wet.
The real star of this film is the section of beach upstate where the so called Mavericks waves get as tall as five story buildings. They talk like that. It means 50 feet.
These waves or, as it seems they talk in the singular "wave", was not well known until recently. Now it is a media trap and over populated. But it is just as lethal.
The actors are pretty good, the story line, while cluttered, had its desired third act effect on me. I had a lump in my throat. It was nerve wracking to see actual people in those waves.
When I was a little kid we went to the Jersey Shore every fall and I played in the waves. I identify. I have always been near the water until now, the anti-water.
So, I was very happy to see this film. It is a solid 3 out of Netflix5 and if we cut out and FF some of the story which we know now, it would be a 5 when the helicopters are zooming over the waves and the riders. Spectacular!
A note. I have to admit that in the early days, I watched surfer films because the men had a lot of their clothes off and they were the kind of bodies one wanted to see for as long as possible as they flew over and under the waves.
This changed when surfing got expansive and the water got colder and I didn't have to go see a movie to see real men with their clothes off close up. Fortunate because rubber suits took over. There is very little skin in this film but that is OK. After the sexiness diminished I found myself attracted to the shear joy and terror of riding the waves. The suits do not provide any degree of safety over a pair of trunks.
I suppose that I also should mention that the all time favorite gay themed film in any "best of" listing is a surfing film, aptly named Surfing. This is not a porno film. It is one of the hundreds of gay films produced in the last ten years that actually have a story and where, in this case anyway, the surfers actually surf and we watch them do it. I do admit that these surfers in this story, do only wear boarder shorts but there is a good reason for that embedded in the story line and it is all tastefully done. Tastefulness being the difference between pornography and "erotica".They are also located in warm water surfing so it all works out.
Labels: films
SWARMING
I read the earthquake records every morning.
There is not a lot of utility in this.
If an earthquake has already happened and it missed you then that is all you need to know.
If it does hit, there is a lot of satisfaction in reading about it and knowing how close you came to a disaster.
Take a look, you might find it interesting. On this page.
There is actually a reason that I look at these. I was told, or read, that it was a good thing to have a swarm of small earthquakes in your area because it meant that the tectonic stress was being relieved gradually. There is always tectonic stress in some places. I live in one of them. A few miles away from the San Andreas fault.
It is not that I am worried about earthquakes. That is a mug's game. They come when they come, are as hard as they are going to be at the time and they go away. All in the space of seconds. Fall on the floor, under cover and cover your head.
I think that I just like to see if there is any stress relieved. It is like going out to see if there are any clouds on the horizon if you are interested in rain.
Anyway.
I have noticed recently that there have been quite a large number of tremblors in the Virgin Islands.
We used to go there a lot, Saint Croix, but never heard about this. Probably because the annual hurricane threat is so dire that an earthquake is just a minor consideration.
That and also the crime rate. I have been shot at in the VI. Something that never happened in my 35 and more years of living in the urban center of Boston.
So I googled and here is what I found
Seven Earthquakes Shake the VI in Five Hours
I don't suppose that anyone reading this really cares about it. But I care.
One of the terms of reading this blog is that if I care you should also.
This is "the Point" on the eastern end of the island. We used to stay about half a mile beyond here and if you look carefully you can see me snorkeling in the water.
There is no danger if there is a quake while you are in water. I think.
Labels: earthquake
TAKE IT WITH A GRAIN OR MORE
For decades, a long time, in this house, we have made our vows about salt. Till death do us part.
That is, we had decided that if and/or when the day came we had to curtail salt, we would jump ship and use it no matter what "they" thought it was doing for us.
Did you ever have a boiled egg without salt? Impossible.
What about any entree or snack?
Well, I don't put salt on pieces of fruit although I know some folks who do.
Looming over our taste for salt has been this bogeyman. The idea that salt kills. Salt destroys. Salt will give you a fucking heart attack! Screams inserted here.
Now, once again, common dietary wisdom is trumped with some actual research.
Panel Finds No Benefit in Sharply Restricting Sodium
Salt joins the long line of things that are good then condemned then, well if not good, OK again.
I know. It is just a case of cherry picking the data but it is not too much of a reach.
Labels: diet
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
FOREVER
Today is Booker's fourth anniversary with us.
When our Franklin died, we were despondent. We gyrated between trying to replace him with another Airedale puppy or never having a dog again. The hurt was very great.
But somehow, within a couple of weeks, we stumbled on an ad for the Southwest Airedale Terrier Rescue outfit. Four states in the Southwest that had taken in Airedales who have lost their homes for one reason or other.
We called and then applied and then waited. But not for very long.
Two days before we called, a new Aireboy had been taken in. His human mom had died and his dad was despondent and was smart enough to realize he couldn't be very good for the dog.
So we started to talk about him.
They keep every dog for thirty days observation but we would write and get pictures and so on. We fell in love with him from afar.
When it was time, we scheduled a visit. Raised in Reno, he was now with a foster home in Las Vegas.
When we went to look at him, I think we knew that it was the real deal before we got there.
Then we met. Bingo.
We picked him up the next morning, very early.
I remember feeling scared somehow about his size. He was half again bigger than Franklin. And there he was. Ready to go.
We had rented an SUV for the occasion because by that time the Cherokee was a bit old for a long trip.
Booker, his name coming to us, got in the back and immediately settled with his chest on the console between the two front seats.
He did not move from there for the six hours of the trip except when we got out to pee two times.
He would push his weight onto one of us, then the other. That close, close, kind of contact that feels so deep.
He also exuded the special Airedale odor that comes out of their body when they are happy and excited. I don't know if any other breed does this. It is a woodsy, earthy odor that grows around us.
We knew. He knew. The Airedale people knew. This was it.
And he is still here. It is an honor and a privilege to live with him.
In the rescue business they like to talk about their animals going to their "forever home".
A little corny. But quite apt.
There will be a special party at dinner tonight. Booker gets a fake bone. John and I will split a fancy cupcake.
Labels: Booker
DREAM JOBS
It has been many, many years since I had a real job. In an office or a company.
But I still dream about it.
The most usual dream, which I had today, is that I return to my first job out of college. The engineering office of the late great Acme Markets in Philadelphia. I just take over my old job which was, actually, mostly doing nothing.
I was brought in because my boss wanted an MIT guy around. I didn't know that at the time but that is my conclusion.
There were "plans" for my future in the operations wing of the company. Bakeries, canning operations, dairy.
I think that I was a chess piece being played with the other managers.
It is not important.
In the dream, it is as though I have been in exile. Some of the same people are there. The job is still as indistinct as it ever was.
I go up the elevator, down a hall and there is my desk. Untouched. I have been away for awhile. There is some inconsequential paper work. I sit and attend to it.
I am happy to be there but also feel, as I did then, that no one else knows that I am there. Or cares.
I was attached to various senior guys from time to time. I would have an occasional project of my own. I would visit plants. I did inspections of all the plants once a year because no one else wanted to do them. I loved that part. Snooping.
But, it is wearing when you have nothing to do.
I never really got an evaluation.
Towards the end, they sent me to outside training. It was life changing. They sent me to one of the early T-Groups.
I got it. I was never the same again.
I left when I was 26 and went back to Massachusetts where I got a real job in operations. Fulfilling.
After that, I got into management training, made useful partnerships, learned the trade and started my own company.
Why do I keep returning to this first workplace? I think that it is the incompletion of it.
I never got anywhere. It was almost like Kafka. Or what I think Kafka wrote about. Inconsequentialness.
But that is only one part of it.
What I got without, almost, knowing it, was a keen observation of work, of company life, of how people work together, how hierarchy creates suffering. A world of insight. All recorded.
When it came time, all this observation would pour out into aspects of training for people who felt empty or directionless. To give them power.
Not only that, the T-Group experience stayed with me to such an extent that I partnered with a T-Group pioneer to take those ideas further into a more practical realm.
Without realizing it, my first years were seminal. The learning I had laid in my lap was incredible.
But, still. It is unfinished business for me. I go to work, I find my desk and there is still nothing to do.
I have had a charmed life and one of the charms was to get a job at the beginning which was so totally non-engaging that I had to find my own way and make something of it.
I am obviously still doing so.
DISSONANCE
Today's film was a documentary
The story of the Chinese artist/dissident.
This is one of those lucky coincidences which good videographers run into. As the doc-maker was taking shots, the government began to crack down on Al Weiwei and it is all on this tape. Also his exhibitions, art. The full thing.
I knew a little about him but not enough to realize his importance.
He is one tough motherfucker.
The film is well edited and as usual shows us a lot of aspects of living in China and in the world of art without being explicit.
Weiwei is a strong personality and interesting enough without all the political hoo hah. I liked the film a lot. A 3 out of Netflix5.
It is, of course, outdate as much has happened since his incarceration for 90 days in 2010.
They released him on bail which for awhile quieted him down but then gradually he came out again. Most recently has escalated his difficulties with the Chinese government by putting his life on display through and illegal four camera display.
He is a truly modern radical.
Labels: films
Monday, May 13, 2013
LOVE STORY
Today's film was
Poulet aux prunes / Chicken With Plums (2011)
An epic love story told through the viewfinder of magical realism, some animation and, always, clever and pleasing imagery.
Mathieu Almeric, an old favorite, is a violinist without a soul until he falls in love and loses that love. He tours the world with the emotional energy he carries from this episode in his life.
It is a fairy tale, a bedtime story. For adults.
I enjoyed it very much and was happy to see the enthusiasm and energy that everyone in it throws into their part.
The photography is wonderful and the pace is just fast enough to keep us off center but nicely slowed down enough to savor the details of each scene.
I would not mind seeing it again sometime. That makes it a 4 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
IT IS ALL MY FAULT
Believe it or not, if you care, Cracker Jack is getting a makeover
When I was a kid (look out, nostalgia incoming), it was one of my favorite treats.
Candied caramel popcorn and peanuts in a slim box, unique shape, and a "toy" inside.
The toys were crappy little plastic things like cars or soldiers or a paper pinwheel to put on your pencil or something cheap. But it was real.
No more. It is out. There will be a code on the side that you can stick your phone reader on and it will take you to some fucking game.
So what happened.
First of all, I was hurt to find that the brand was now owned by Frito-Lay, the snack conglomerate. Not a good sign.
Then I see that some genius sees the CrackerJack™ as an extendable brand. They have invented line extension favorites.
And they have also redesigned the box. The new packaging bears no resemblance to the iconic Cracker Jack™ look.
The traditional box, which they say they will keep, stands alone.
The kid with a sailor suit who has stood guard over the product for so long is on the bags in a kind of sick shadow of his former self.
And so on.
In another context, I call this "looting".
I have to admit that a lot of this is probably my fault. I used to lust after Cracker Jack™ and ate a lot of it in my time. Then I quit. I am loyal to the brand only in my head.
But I can still taste the product.
What can we expect?
No one sings "take me out to the ballgame" anymore, I suppose, and so the free plug the product got all those years is not there anymore either.
Now, looked at objectively, the little fairy on the box and the baseball sign was probably not doing much for the world of "share of market killer shelf space" marketing.
I used to encounter the Frito-Lay vendor rep shelf filler when I shopped in the morning. We would talk. Since I switched from Staters to Ralphs for my groceries it is a different guy who I don't know. So there is no way that I can comment about such things to someone in the chain of command.
A week or two ago, I introduced myself to the vendor rep guy who was stocking up on our boxes of Snyders Pretzels. I complained to him about the preponderance of broken pieces. (The come all the way from Pennsylvania).
He looked at me as though I was insane. A being kind smile on his face. When I told him I wanted him to pass the word up the chain of command to the president, I realized that I probably was insane.
There will be no repeat of this quixotic behavior about Cracker Jack™. It is just one of those things that have hit their Darwinian moment. The rudimentary new wings or fins or whatever are sprouting. Nothing to do.
I have always wanted to leave the world in a better place than I found it but it is getting harder to do when some of the really good things are evolving out.
This is a 60s commercial starring Jack Gilford, another all time favorite.
Labels: nostalgia
Sunday, May 12, 2013
CONFLUENCE
I don't much like conflict.
Although I am willing to indulge in it. Particularly partisan political conflict.
Sometimes I worry that our country is flying apart. In pieces.
This defies my understanding of things. I exist in a personal world that seems a lot more peaceful. I am agreeable. So are the people around me.
Even the partisan politicals that I interact with are nice about it.
It is comforting to read this as it speaks to the larger universe.
90 Percent of Americans Agree on God, Country and Sex Education.
Take a look at the list of areas where people come together more than 90%.
Believe in God. Sure, if this means that they have spiritual lives that need not be messed up with religious theories.
Are very patriotic. That's me. I think most people too. Some a bit overzealous, nevertheless.
Consider preventing terrorism a very important foreign policy goal. I am down with that.
Admire those who get rich by working hard. Yes. I worked hard and within my frame of reference, I got rich. Rich enough.
Think society should ensure everyone has equal opportunity to succeed. Yes. I am not sure that it does, but I wish that it did.
Think it’s important to get more than a high school education. I am glad they don't stipulate. Auto-college is a bit underfire right now. I think that everyone should move on to vocational or academic education of some kind.
Favor teaching sex education in public schools. Of course. And that means absent of bullshit concepts such as abstinence and the like. I mean, abstinence is OK but it should be a choice. Should also, obviously, include positive messages about the variety of sexual experience.
Find birth control morally acceptable. I would say necessary but this is more a political decision I guess. It should go with the sex education thing.
Believe cloning humans would be morally wrong. Yes. Period. No question. I don't know about the "morally" part but it is and would be surely bad for business. Messing with Darwin.
Believe it’s wrong for married people to have affairs. Yes. If by "affairs" you mean the establishment of relationships similar to mistresses and the like to the exclusion of the partner to whom one made the vows. Even for "the gays" who have always considered themselves an exception.
Are interested in keeping up with national affairs. I hope so.
Believe it’s their duty to always vote. Now. This is where the study comes up short. We know by actual fact and measure that while people may believe this, they do not practice it.
And this may be true for a lot of the other items as well. See "affairs" for example. Belief does not always produce consistent action so while we might be comforted by the confluence of beliefs, we should probably be disturbed by people's tendency to lie about all these "good" things.
I remain a skeptic about others but can find myself practically perfect!
Labels: polls
BIGGER THAN LIFE
Today's film, a NYTimes Critics' Pick was Paul Thomas Anderson's
This film is one of a series by Anderson that goes beyond "real life". He is good at taking an event or personna of the times and working around it.
Boogie Nights, There Will be Blood were about a time and place and the people trying to work around and through it.
This film is the same.
Ostensibly it is about The Master played by Philip Seymour Hoffman but then is taken over by a half crazy acolyte, alcoholic Joaquin Phoenix. Then their relationship, rich and scary. And then the times. The Fifties. Filled with postwar craziness, crazies and crazed adherent to "new ideas".
The Master is based to a loose extent on L. Ron Hubbard. Even though they have denied this, I read the book.
The cult is in the background. What is foremost is the obsessive relationship between the guru and this apostate who will not be managed, or cannot.
The performances of these two men as the ego and id are matched by the power and strength of the woman behind the throne, Amy Adams. A tough manipulator of her man and powerful controller of the threat to him by this crazy alcoholic. Supeprego.
I love it when a writer director goes back so obviously to the "discredited" Freud and reinvents the themes that persist in our times. Freud always wins.
The story is not in the story but in the invisible lines between the three.
There are true believers, Laura Dern and real apostates, the Master's son who sees it all as a parade of whatever comes into his Dad's mind at the time.
There are moments in this film that are so cringeworthy that I had to look away. There are other times when the beauty of natural settings overwhelm the picayune behaviors of the master, his rebellious slave and his ever watchful wife and family.
Shot in 70mm they say. It is apparent in the ocean, the city, the desert and even in the view of a house they stay in for awhile. A suburban mansion beauty.
So, it is not about Scientology any more than it is a about the end of WWII. Or the Master or about rebellion. Or, for that matter alcoholism.
Throb and pulse. Change is in the wind and we know from our own lives how it all turned out.
Phoenix is a very strange cat. He holds himself in a strange way, he maneuvers his face into grotesque and crazy positions. He is untamed. Furious. A danger to himself, perhaps others.
I am not sure that I have seen him before. He is a perfect match for Seymour Hoffman. And the reverse. Amy Adams. Another new presence. I have seen her before but here, she commands.
The film itself is an event. The story. A part of the life's work of a great director. Confounding at times, I think that it will stick in my brain for awhile.
After all, I used to be in the "master" business myself. True.
It is a definite 5 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
MOTHERS
It is Mother's Day.
When I was a kid it was a big deal at church. There were flowers and corsages.
I remember making things out of paper doilies. But maybe that was Valentine's Day.
I usually got a potted plant down the road. A geranium. The smell of Mother's Day is geranium.
I suspect that the day has changed. I do not have a mother any more.
When I did, an older one, I would call Helen Reese, the florist in my home town, and have her drop something off at my Mom's house.
I somehow don't think that the significance, if any, to the day is that easily handled by punching the florist button. But that is what I did.
And, as most people did at that time, I wallowed in a bit of sentimentalism about the whole thing.
I find this hard to say even now, but while I loved my mother, I didn't like her very much.
I suppose this isn't so unusual.
I don't know many people who liked their Mom a lot. And for those who say they do, well, I am very happy for them. I bet that they don't just punch the flower button and let it go at that.
So. While it is a fake holiday in the beginning made to sell cards, flowers and sentimentality it does arouse a lot of feelings. Ambivalence.
My kids were very close to their mother in a way that I never felt for mine.
They had good cause.
She had the kind of love, some times tough, that never gave up. Or waned.
She was a much better mother, if there is such a measure, than I was a father.
I watched her "work" at close quarters.
She was always there to support or to help. To correct in a way that was not self centered. All about her.
One way to see her gifts in action was to watch my kids, as they grew up, become aware of her as a very special friend. They not only loved her, they liked her too.
She was a great partner to me, even after we separated. We stayed being parents. Well, we were that so why try to kid ourselves.
As a parent partner, the managing partner of the deal, she was superb.
I know that today she is missed. I miss her. I am sure the kids do.
I don't remember that our kids gave her flowers. The easy fix. I think that it was more handmade cards. Perhaps small chores done.
One of the great gifts she gave our kids was her humility. I know that it was a gift for me. From her. I couldn't come up to her level of it but I learned a lot.
So today, I will be thinking about one of the best mothers that I have known the best.
Here's to you Bobby. The ultimate Mom. A few tears now. A bit of sadness.
Labels: love
Saturday, May 11, 2013
FALSE START
Today's film was the Danish production of Nikolaj Arcel's
The Enlightenment is on in Europe at large but not in hide bound royalist Denmark.
Something is rotten in the state, indeed.
A group of disaffected nobles gain the services of a German physician who also happens to be a pamphleteer against the nasty right wing religious government that uses the King as a puppet for their own ends.
The Doc gets selected as the King's personal physician and they become fast friends.
At the same time, an English bride has been brought to the court to provide an heir.
Long story short, the doctor and the queen fall in love.
It is all pretty epic given the romance, the tension between the right wingers and the new breed which wants social change.
An old story, just like today, played out in costumery and scenery (Budapest) which is totally gorgeous.
The Danish film industry is an accomplished one and they all turn out here to do their acting and production best.
I really liked this film a lot. It seems that everyone does not live happily ever after but then, in a great little extension at the end, we get some more perspective and realize that it was all worthwhile.
I am not the guy to tell you about this film. It overtook me completely and I was transported into it.
It is very good.
A possible 5 out of Netflix5 if the aura of this afternoon lasts over time.
Mads Mikkelsen, who we have seen before is the hero. Herr Doktor.
Labels: films
Friday, May 10, 2013
MOVIE MISCHIEF
Today's film was
with Jeff Bridges, Andy Griffith, Alan Arkin, Blythe Danner, Donald Pleasance and, what seem to be, all the character actors in Hollywood.
This is a movie about making movies. Always fun, somehow. Only people in on the game could come up with the ins and outs of backstabbing, double dealing and outright chicanery that go along with the picture business.
Bridges is an aspiring movie writer who decides to go right to the source of his correspondence course only to find that there is no school. Only two con men.
There is a fight and an escape into the desert and the writer falls into a B movie production on location.
He gets a job, a girl, a part in a movie and gets someone to read his novel.
But nothing is simple in the movies.
Chases, shootings (more than the picture kind) and a lot of confusion adds up to a sweet comedy. It is not a great picture but it is a picture that arouses a lot of affection. No one is really mean. Well, they are but it turns out OK.
I have wanted to see this for quite a while. I read about it and it would pop up here and there. Not on Netflix. Not for sale at any price.
Then it popped up in a collection of older movies and they unbundled the films so I could buy it (cheap) and just see it.
I am glad that I did. It cost the same as two regular movies and I will probably give it away to a friend who has a huge collection of films. Who, like our star is a movie writer!
If I had rented it this film would have been a 4 out of Netflix5. Maybe a 3.
One more thing. I have seen all of Jeff Bridge's movies except this one. Now that goal is complete.
It is easy to see the Bridges that we know developing his comic chops in this film. He is very very good. But then we found that out some time ago.
Labels: films
Thursday, May 09, 2013
ROAD TEST
I went for my urodynamics test this morning.
This is not a rock group.
It is a test of bladder efficiency and stuff.
It was quite an experience.
This is no simple thing. Hi tech.
A really neat woman ran the thing. A medical technician, not a nurse. She put a wired catheter up the penis and the rectum. Each! Both. Together.
The penis one has two tubes. One electronic and the other a water supply. The rectum measures something around the stomach.
I also got wired up with four EKG type electrodes around my pubes (no shaving required, ouch at the end). She has a computer equipped with a water bottle and a small pump.
We got going and water gets pumped into the bladder. The subject, reports "sensations". Not many for me until it is time to pee. She says until, if I was riding along the highway, I would be getting off to take a leak. Not until it hurts hurts but more like well, full.
I complied.
The machine hummed.
Before too long, the test was over.
They put my leg bag back on. I can't do without it but I knew that.
I set up an appointment with the Doc and the soonest will be May 24. Two weeks.
No shorts, no gym, same deal until we get a solution. But there will be a solution. I have been assured of that.
I was a little disappointed. I thought maybe the Doc would be waiting for me in the next room and they would teach me how to self catheter.
No.
The options seem clearer now actually. A laser on the prostate to widen the passage, a tube inserted to widen the channel, or self catheterization for life if the bladder is flubbed out. I suspect the latter but one can only squeeze so much info out of a technician and so, I wait.
It could be a lot worse. I could be feeling like I had to pull off the highway to pee all the time.
Labels: urology
GAY HERO AND MARTYR
I came across this photo today.
He was a gay hero but the British didn't think so.
Roger David Casement (Irish: Ruairí Dáithí Mac Easmainn; 1 September 1864 – 3 August 1916) — known as Sir Roger Casement Kt. CMG between 1911 and shortly before his execution for treason, when he was stripped of his knighthood[1] — was an Irish nationalist, activist, patriot and poet.A British consul by profession, Casement became famous for his reports and activities against human rights abuses in the Congo and Peru, and also for his dealings with Germany before Ireland's Easter Rising in 1916. An Irish nationalist and Parnellite supporter in his youth, in Africa he worked for commercial interests and latterly in the service of the UK.
However, the Boer War and his consular investigation into atrocities in the Congo led Casement to anti-Imperialist and ultimately to Irish Republican and separatist political opinions. He sought to obtain German support for a rebellion in Ireland against British rule. Shortly before the Easter Rising, he landed in Ireland and was arrested. He was subsequently convicted and executed for treason.
There has been controversy over a set of Black Diaries, copies of which were circulated selectively by the British authorities following Casement's conviction, which, if accepted as genuine, would portray Casement as a promiscuous homosexual with a fondness for young men. Given prevailing views on homosexuality at the time, circulation of the diaries helped undermine support for clemency for Casement......
Wikipedia
Labels: gay history
TURKISH BATH
Today's film is the Belgian
A young gay expat Turk who happens to be gay falls in love with a Belgian boy.
The Turk's family has already arranged a traditional wedding. Nevertheless the young gay Turk takes the new boyfriend with him to meet the promised bride.
There is a lot of cross cultural stuff in this. Almost too much.
Muslim and Non, old style Turk and, interestingly, the more conservative emigres. And of course gay straight. There is even a bit of attention paid to the deeply conservative white coated muslim guys.
The romantic stuff is sweet and hardly R-rated. The muslim stuff is enlightening. The story gets darker as it goes.
Spoiler. There is a "false" ending which turns out to be a violent fantasy. Good thing it didn't last long as I was ready to chuck the DVD at that point.
These films are coming along like they are on an assembly line. At least they are gaining in complexity and interest. The old laugh queen plots seem to be fewer and farther between.
I am glad that I saw it but probably won't look at it again. I bought it accidentally and let the sale consummate. It would be a 3 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
BLUE JOB
I started but did not finish. Or even get past the first quarter.
No. It is not the auto value blue book. It is a novel about, what?
A skinny guy who grows up in the country, then is seen on an ocean cruise with a woman who he doesn't want to marry. Then it shifts POV to the woman who doesn't want to be with him either and is actually on the ship to meet a mentalist who doesn't want to be seen with her.
In between there is a lot of stream of conscious balderdash for each of them none of which makes sense.
No character so far is attractive.
In a new chapter there are going to be other people. The book seems to be a series of short stories that are intertwined.
How? I don't much care.
I tried stream reading the stream of consciousness but that leads to somnolent result.
Sleepy times.
I quite while I was behind with no idea of where I was, where I had been and where it all was going.
New lit, abstractions.
Too bad.
Off to the Palm Springs library for a new home.
Labels: books
THE LATEST ON ACCEPTANCE
Washington Post Poll today:
Post-ABC poll: Jason Collins, gay marriage and boy scouts
More support for marriage equality.
Surprising level of support for gay basketball player Jason Collins and an unequivocal reaction to the shitty boy scouts split of leaders versus boys.
The Boy Scouts have a talent for exposing their own biases in a wrong footed way.
By their allowing gay boys in and keeping gay leaders out they manage to be hypocritical, deny the mentorship of adult gay men to gay boys and, all in the same swoop, indirectly connect the unrelated dots of pedophilia and homosexuality.
If it is OK to have gay boys then where do they get their leadership from? Straight men? Stoopid. Already, gay boys and girls are born into straight families who even at their most supportive and sensitive can be clueless about what gay is all about and how a gay boy matures into a healthy gay adult.
It seems apparent that the public sees through this crap.
Labels: gay life
Wednesday, May 08, 2013
FABLE
Today's movie was the second half of
the long awaited Bollywood production (DVD) about a small village, a British occupation and a tax dodge that rests on the outcome of a cricket tournament between the villagers and the Brits. It is a musical!
The story is rather predictable in an unpredictable way but very enjoyable. The production numbers are big and, well, Indian.
But Indian with a western spin. No sitars to speak of.
I didn't realize so much of the story and film relied on some understanding of cricket but, as it turns out, one can be dumb about the sport and still get a lot out of the process. The ups and downs, the thrills and spills. Like baseball, it is an essentially boring sport and needs the color of the personalities, the grudges, the outside influences.
Once was enough for this film. I like watching the star Amir Kahn, a great star in his country.
I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5. Which is pretty good. I never recovered from watching the great Indian director Satyajit Ray in the Fifties. Great expanses of boring celluloid.
They have come a long way.
Here is a musical number from the film.
Labels: films
Tuesday, May 07, 2013
THE DAMN BRITS
Today's film was the first half of the Indian film
Peasants are subject to extra taxes by a nasty local Brit commander but they can get out of them by beating the Brits at their own game, cricket.
A setup for defeat, surely, until we find out that there are some similarities between the mysterious Brit game and a local game that comes from antiquity.
This is a Bollywood production, full of music and dance and very healthy looking peasants.
There is not one original thing in the plot or the various "tricks" the villagers and the Brits use to make their side the winner.
What is interesting is the very Bollywoodness of it and the smoothing of what are often rough edges in Indian films for western ears and eyes.
The reason I am watching it is that it stars Aamir Khan a hot indian actor who wrote the piece as well. He himself is a good crossover candidate as he has more western features but now we are about to get as racist as the "whities" who lord it over the darker races.
The film is a kind of cult favorite and rates a very long wait on Netflix. It has been at the top of my queue for about four months. Since it was released on DVD.
The film is four hours long but moves quite quickly, nevertheless too long for me in one gulp.
I like it so far for, probably, all the wrong reasons. I look forward to tomorrow's developments and, of course, the big game.
I am on the side of the Indians mostly because I don't know anything about cricket either.
Lagaan means tax. The fruit of their labors. Wheat and grain to the sultan and the empire.
Labels: films
IF THE SHOE FITS
This is pretty good.
The Best Little Boy in the World—That's Me
And me.
When Andrew Tobias' book came out a lot of us identified immediately.
This guy's story is a lot like mine.
Growing up queer is not easy. I knew when I was four. Or, I should say, I knew something.
I adored other little boys especially at the beach and in intimate situations like sleep overs. I remember the moment in time when Dick Higbee and I got our feet wet and my mother made us take our shoes off and go barefoot. Zing.
I wasn't much interested in dolls. But I was not at all interested in hunting, fishing, sports (either watching or doing) or any other "boy" things. All cultural tags.
Later I enjoyed watching sports, wrestling, track, swimming, because the boys/men took their clothes off to do the sport.
I caught on that I was different from my Dad. I scared him. He backed off. He removed a lot of his touching. Of course, that increased the yearning.
I can honestly say that I had no friends without the spark to it.
But. How to hide this? Be smart. Or act it. Be a brain. Be precocious. My mouth kept me out of fights. Often got me into them too but I could defend myself with the verbal barb.
I excelled, deflected attention from that thing, almost unconsciously. I cultivated my iconoclasm and my introversion.
I went to college and within weeks was taking afternoon showers at the campus pool with another kid like me. Awakenings ensued. But it was hard to have a relationship. As it happens, I now know that almost all of my college friends were gay.
I couldn't face being out out even though I was now a young man with some experience so I got married. And had kids.
I am very happy that I did. My life, as it turns out, has been full of gifts as a direct result of being the best little boy.
Eventually, of course, it all fell apart. A house divided will not stand.
Brick by brick, sometimes as a collapse, I took the hidden part of me and brought it to the surface.
I came out, I got an adolescence (in my late thirties), a met some nice men and finally turned that skill of meeting, being comfortable with myself into a gay life. I got a husband. One who could even be a kind of step father to my kids.
It is sad that people along the way got hurt. This hiding hurt me too. But the payoff has been enormous. Finally I am a fallible male human being who desires the complete company of other male humans.
The hardest part of coming out is coming out to ones self.
The over achieving? Not sorry about that. I built a business, made some money, got a professional reputation, wrote a book or two. Nice.
Oh. Later in life I got to be something of a jock too. A runner. I competed. I went to the gym. Still go. It kills me that right now I am banned from working out because of my urological "condition". This will pass and I will go back to my gym rat friends some of whom happen to be straight.
If, in the unlikely possibility that you are just like me and this guy in the article, take courage. Sooner or later you will reach the same point and it will be all right. Sooner is better though.
One caveat. A lot of things a homosexual young man fears, he fears appropriately. The family, the co-workers, the community are not going to break out into cheers for a gay man breaking out. Some will be angry. Others will try to harm you. Some will cut you off, never to be seen again.
Too bad. Can't be helped. The way of the world.
Somebody will not like you and will be your enemy for something. Let it be the real you and not some "idea" of who you are.
You will be making a lot of new friends. And some of them will be happy to sleep and play with you too. Not a fringe benefit incidentally. Years of doing without can be compensated. Live and learn.
Labels: coming out, gay liberation, gay life
