Tuesday, February 14, 2012
QUOTE FOR VALENTINE'S DAY
"To be loved is to be accepted. To love is to accept." —William Saroyan (from ROCK WAGRAM)
Monday, February 13, 2012
SLAVERY BY ANOTHER NAME
SLAVERY BY ANOTHER NAME, the PBS documentary just aired, and if you didn't get a chance to see it, find a way. Based on a book by Douglas A. Blackmon, it explores, and exposes, the history of the ways Southern white power structures were able to maintain a system of slavery after The Civil War and right up until World War Two and FDR's enforcement of the anti-slavery amendment and anti-peonage laws.
With re-enactments and dramatizations of letters and court documents and personal witness from relatives of victims of this post-Civil War form of slavery, and narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, the documentary conforms to a lot of the conventions of this form, but because of the power of the story and the revelatory aspect of the content, which I would guess many people had no idea of (including some of the relatives of the victims of it), this is a very powerful experience. I wouldn't miss it.
I want to thank several friends who alerted me to its airing tonight and to the book it is based on, both among my neighbors in my Jersey town and among old friends farther away. You all were right, it was not to be missed and I'm grateful I didn't.
Here's a link to the author's web page.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
WHITNEY HOUSTON R.I.P.
Whitney Houston was a Jersey girl who I first saw and heard sing when she was wearing her hair in a natural so short it couldn't have been more than a quarter inch long [I couldn't find a photo of how she looked then and since we all have I'm sure a clear image in our own minds of her at her best I'll leave it at that].
She was skinny but beautiful with the most amazing voice and beautiful face I thought I may have ever seen at that point. She didn't dance very well but she sang like no one else, something that can rarely be said about any "artist" or of anybody doing pretty much anything actually.
I had been hired to write a movie for an up and coming white male movie star and I came up with a story for his character, a Country Western singer/songwriter drifter where he gets hooked up with a black Gospel revival and he falls in love with the preacher's daughter who happens to have the most amazing voice.
I wrote it for Whitney Houston. But the studio that hired me to write it didn't know who Whitney Houston was as she hadn't become a singing sensation yet and besides they didn't think audiences were ready for a biracial romance, something they'd been telling me for years actually.
Of course I was happy when THE BODYGUARD came out years later and proved them wrong and me right, but by then Whitney was a huge star so it wasn't much of a gamble on their part. I followed her early career pretty closely and bought her albums and continued to tout her to people and was happy when she became a star and sad when she ran into troubles.
I was as proud of her Jersey roots and family ties, Cissie Houston, Dionne Warwick and all, as I am of my own, and for a while she actually lived not far from one of my extended family. I felt a connection that with time faded but came back today with full force when I heard the news of her passing and when they played not one of her hits, but her singing of the national anthem in that Super Bowl that time, the clip made me feel like my heart was breaking for the seemingly fragile young girl I first fell in awe of for her talent and beauty and who in the end perhaps was still too fragile in the face of life's hardships and challenges.
She was skinny but beautiful with the most amazing voice and beautiful face I thought I may have ever seen at that point. She didn't dance very well but she sang like no one else, something that can rarely be said about any "artist" or of anybody doing pretty much anything actually.
I had been hired to write a movie for an up and coming white male movie star and I came up with a story for his character, a Country Western singer/songwriter drifter where he gets hooked up with a black Gospel revival and he falls in love with the preacher's daughter who happens to have the most amazing voice.
I wrote it for Whitney Houston. But the studio that hired me to write it didn't know who Whitney Houston was as she hadn't become a singing sensation yet and besides they didn't think audiences were ready for a biracial romance, something they'd been telling me for years actually.
Of course I was happy when THE BODYGUARD came out years later and proved them wrong and me right, but by then Whitney was a huge star so it wasn't much of a gamble on their part. I followed her early career pretty closely and bought her albums and continued to tout her to people and was happy when she became a star and sad when she ran into troubles.
I was as proud of her Jersey roots and family ties, Cissie Houston, Dionne Warwick and all, as I am of my own, and for a while she actually lived not far from one of my extended family. I felt a connection that with time faded but came back today with full force when I heard the news of her passing and when they played not one of her hits, but her singing of the national anthem in that Super Bowl that time, the clip made me feel like my heart was breaking for the seemingly fragile young girl I first fell in awe of for her talent and beauty and who in the end perhaps was still too fragile in the face of life's hardships and challenges.
DOWNTON ABBEY
This was just after breakfast. I went up to my grandson's room where I'm sleeping and watched the entire first episode, and then being the obsessive person I am hit the link for the next episode and got so sucked in and compelled to see the story continue the next thing I know I've watched the entire first season and it's dark out and dinnertime.
But I have to admit, it was worth it. All the technical aspects of the show, from the cinematography and art direction, to the acting and writing and directing and editing, are superb. It's a delight to watch and savor. As you probably know, even if you haven't caught it yet or become addicted to it as I have, it's an upstairs downstairs lord and lady valet and maid sprawling saga set in a British great house at the beginning of the 20th Century.
The first season takes us up to the The First World War. Like GOSFORD PARK or the original UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS (the creators of which, I think, brought a suit against DOWNTOWN ABBEY) DOWNTOWN ABBEY is classic Brit class and status conscious sophisticated soap opera fare. But it is so well done, it's like a box of chocolates where every single one is perfectly delicious no matter how familiar or unique each one might be.
I'm too tired to look up all the actors who do such a great job or the creator's name right now, but I know Elizabeth McGovern and Maggie Smith who are two of the best things about it, though everyone in the cast shines. And maybe the fact that my Irish immigrant grandparents started in this country as a scullery maid and a footman in an American version of a great house and so I can sympathize with and imagine them in these roles and what I know of their characters and personalities that adds an extra dollop of pleasure to the whole endeavour.
Whatever the reasons, my friends and the critics were right. DOWNTON ABBEY is an addictive delight.
Friday, February 10, 2012
PS TO LAST POST
So, the big noise from the right just a few months ago was the deficit, and how Obama was a monster because the deficit was so high (never mentioning that when he took office it was the highest it had ever been before).
So this year, January 2012, the deficit is down 46% (that's FORTY-SIX PERCENT!!!) from last year when they were acting like the world was coming to an end because the deficit was too high.
So, anybody hear any accolades for Obama, and hosannas, any props, any praise and thank yous any effin' acknowledgment at all that what they had been screaming for and claiming meant terror for their children and grandchildren has been reduced so effectively?
Nada.
"Cause it ain't about any of the stuff they say it's about. All any of their criticism and accusations and fear mongering is about is their hatred of our president and their whiny spoiled baby tantrums over him being democratically elected. They can't stand not controlling everything because the very nature of rightwing ideology is control over anything and everything that frightens them, and pretty much everything and anything frightens them. especially a president with an odd name and dark skin who went to an elite Ivy League school based entirely on his brains which they will never accept as they continue to accuse him of not believing in The Constitution when he's one of a handful of presidents who actually understand it better than most people (which is why he was able to teach it at the level he did) and obviously close to a hundred percent better than anybody the right has been able to come up with to run against him.
The problem is, the Dems and the prez don't use his victories enough to tout his obvious and factual supremacy over the right's last best boys Bush Junior and Dick Darth Vader Cheney.
So this year, January 2012, the deficit is down 46% (that's FORTY-SIX PERCENT!!!) from last year when they were acting like the world was coming to an end because the deficit was too high.
So, anybody hear any accolades for Obama, and hosannas, any props, any praise and thank yous any effin' acknowledgment at all that what they had been screaming for and claiming meant terror for their children and grandchildren has been reduced so effectively?
Nada.
"Cause it ain't about any of the stuff they say it's about. All any of their criticism and accusations and fear mongering is about is their hatred of our president and their whiny spoiled baby tantrums over him being democratically elected. They can't stand not controlling everything because the very nature of rightwing ideology is control over anything and everything that frightens them, and pretty much everything and anything frightens them. especially a president with an odd name and dark skin who went to an elite Ivy League school based entirely on his brains which they will never accept as they continue to accuse him of not believing in The Constitution when he's one of a handful of presidents who actually understand it better than most people (which is why he was able to teach it at the level he did) and obviously close to a hundred percent better than anybody the right has been able to come up with to run against him.
The problem is, the Dems and the prez don't use his victories enough to tout his obvious and factual supremacy over the right's last best boys Bush Junior and Dick Darth Vader Cheney.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
UNTO CAESAR
Wasn't that what Jesus said? Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God what is God's?
And doesn't The Constitution guarantee freedom of religion not churches get to make their own rules in their relationship with the law and the government, a democratic government elected by the people based on The Constitution not on any religion's interpretation of it?
So why is the right suddenly going crazy over some religious organizations that control health institutions and plans that impact all of us having to abide by the law?
Could it be because our president is doing better than their boys did in terms of foreign policy, getting Bin Laden and ending the Iraq War and lowering our dependence on foreign oil and lowering the trade deficit and etc. etc. and the economy's improving and is in fact better, much better in many areas, than it was when he took over from their boys?
The right needs an issue to beat the president up with, so they've gone back to their usual tactics of trying to set the president and Democrats up as anti-religious or in this particular case as anti-Catholic. We'll see if it works, if they can twist reality enough and repeat big lies enough to get enough un- or ill-informed people to think these claims are actually true.
Hope the Dems and the prez are hip enough to their tactics to counterattack. If the right fears Sharia Law because they think it would impose religious standards on others and claim their religion supersedes The Constitution, then how come when it comes to the Christian religion it's okay to do that?
Unh unh unh.
And doesn't The Constitution guarantee freedom of religion not churches get to make their own rules in their relationship with the law and the government, a democratic government elected by the people based on The Constitution not on any religion's interpretation of it?
So why is the right suddenly going crazy over some religious organizations that control health institutions and plans that impact all of us having to abide by the law?
Could it be because our president is doing better than their boys did in terms of foreign policy, getting Bin Laden and ending the Iraq War and lowering our dependence on foreign oil and lowering the trade deficit and etc. etc. and the economy's improving and is in fact better, much better in many areas, than it was when he took over from their boys?
The right needs an issue to beat the president up with, so they've gone back to their usual tactics of trying to set the president and Democrats up as anti-religious or in this particular case as anti-Catholic. We'll see if it works, if they can twist reality enough and repeat big lies enough to get enough un- or ill-informed people to think these claims are actually true.
Hope the Dems and the prez are hip enough to their tactics to counterattack. If the right fears Sharia Law because they think it would impose religious standards on others and claim their religion supersedes The Constitution, then how come when it comes to the Christian religion it's okay to do that?
Unh unh unh.
MIKE KELLEY R.I.P.
I just found out that L.A. artist Mike Kelley passed. Another great soul as far as I'm concerned. I met him early on when I moved to L.A. in '82 and dug him and his work. I'm sorry to see him go so young (only 57). Condolences to all and may his spirit be at peace. Here's a good obit from the L.A. Times.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
