Brigham's Blog: March 2010

31 Mar 2010

Last Friday night my wife and I watched a Drew Barrymore-Jessica Lange movie "Grey Gardens" (2009), which she rented. The plot? In a squalid mansion in East Hampton, NY, two crazy women (one of whom wears sweaters on her head), the Beales, run their mouths. Feral cats and raccoons defecate. That's it! For some reason my wife finds this engrossing.

We have now seen the original 1975 documentary, a documentary sequel and this fictionalized treatment. I understand it's also been turned into a musical - which invokes a mental image of a feral cat and raccoon chorus line. I am done with the Beale women. The only place left to explore is their x-rays.

I am still plowing through that biography about David Bowie, written by his rapt biographer Marc Spitz. I'm in the 1976 "Thin White Duke" era, when he was ingesting impossible amounts of cocaine - probably keeping several Colombian drug lords solvent - and, according to Spitz, utterly reinventing the world of art in a fashion thought possible only by Beethoven or Wagner.

I was looking around at youtube the other night, and came across this footage of Bowie performing a favorite song, "Cracked Actor" live at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles, September 5th 1974. I can tell you precisely where I was when he was singing this: in the woods surrounding the venue, being led away by Universal security.

My pal Mike and I had just graduated from high school a few months prior, and we both liked Bowie's Diamond Dogs Lp. When the tour was announced I tried to get tickets, but they were swallowed up like that (snapping fingers). So we decided to do the next best thing, which was park on a long unused road parallel to the 101 freeway (now called Buddy Holly Drive) and do a foray into the mysterious wooded area adjacent to the amphitheater with the aim of seeing and hearing the concert from afar.

We penetrated into the perimeter of the amphitheater and could hear the band very well... it was cool. Just then three or four guys dressed in black said, "Okay, come out. No trespassing." We were led over to the security area where I think we had to show ID. No tickets, no show. We were tantalizing close to the stage as we were being led away, and I could clearly hear Bowie and the band doing "Cracked Actor." "Hey," I thought, "He arranged it differently than on the Lp. It sounds really good! I like those simplified guitar chords!"

We were released outside of the parking lot and made our way back to the car, disappointed. Mike said something about a Civil War flanking maneuver - I forget what, precisely - and we left. So close, yet so far away.

Mike: Anything to add?

The tour's performances were recorded and later released as "David Live"; it was the Lp I bought towards the very end of Marine Corps boot camp, when we were allowed a visit to the PX. Later I replayed that arrangement of "Cracked Actor" so often I wore out the grooves.

This was not my only run-in with Universal security. My curiosity about the large wooded area more or less adjacent to the amphitheater awakened, one Saturday my friend Ron and I jumped the chain link fence in 1977 and took a good look around. We came across all sorts of curious things: grottoes and caves made of concrete, decaying statuary, small concrete ponds, benches, platforms, etc. It was apparently once a park or an attraction of some kind. Very mysterious. We left.

Twenty five years later I read a book about the San Fernando Valley and came upon a mention of a 1930's attraction named "Monkey Island" on Cahuenga Boulevard. That must be it! So I got in touch with the book's author and we compared notes, telling him what I found there; I promised to do some reconnaissance when I was next in Los Angeles.

The next time I was in Los Angeles I was with my wife and daughters. As promised, we drove over to the big vacant wooded area on Cahuenga and I looked around, holding my camera. It wasn't five minutes before a security guy in a van drove up, asking me what I was doing. Not answering (being on a public sidewalk with a camera is perfectly legal), I asked him about the wooded area and Monkey Island. He told me that yes, there are some things in the fenced off area which now belongs to Universal (he was with my freinds at Universal security), and he's continually chasing kids out of the area. But he didn't know anything about any Monkey Island.

A google satellite map of the area is here. That mysterious wooded area at the intersection of Cahuenga, Buddy Holly Dr. and the 101 is still there.

Finally, I note this web site about Monkey Island, which places it near by but not at where I thought it was. It appears that what Ron and I found wasn't Monkey Island at all, just an elaborate estate, or Hanna-Barbera property...

30 Mar 2010

I watched an amusing noir yesterday called "The Captive City" (1952), wherein small town newspaperman John Forsythe discovers that his city has been infiltrated by the Mafia. Even the local police are in on it! What to do? Drive feverishly to the state capital, where Senator Estes Kefauver and his famous crime committee will save the day. The Federal government to the rescue!

Concluding with a sequence featuring the senator intoning about how every town is at risk, this movie seemed more like a ninety-minute ad for Kefauver's political aspirations than a proper noir. (Kefauver would later run for president against Eisenhower. He also led the famous comic book committees of the 1950's, which included testimony by Fredric Wertham, which is famous for calling Batman and Robin gay.) Did the Kefauver Hearings ever stop or even slow down organized crime? I wonder.

The Burbank Symphony Orchestra! Performing what, I don't know, but whatever it was, it required a choir.

Oh. Looks like Alonzo Cushing (seen above) is getting a posthumous Medal of Honor. Interesting. The write up on the page says that at Gettysburg he stopped a cannon vent with his bare thumb - which was burned to the bone. Yeeeooowwwww... that's desperate work!

Reminds me of an incident at a Civil War reenactment in Provo, Utah, I was at on the 4th of July 1983. It went terribly wrong when a cannon misfired as the charge was being rammed home, blowing off the arms of the man with the rammer. (A spark was left in the tube which ignited the powder. Article here.) As you can imagine, it was a scene of complete chaos. I recall seeing blood spurt from his stumps and wondered, "How on earth did he manage to set that up so it looks so authentic?" then sickened when I realized it was no illusion.

I should mention that I'm never a fan of when reenactors bedeck themselves with fake gore and guts during a battle reenactment to add authenticity. It's confusing in a way that I don't want to be confused when I don't want to be confused.

Back to the accident: One fellow walked over to me holding his thumb. I asked what the matter was and he showed me - some of the flesh around his thumb was blown off to the bone when the cannon fired. He was on the cannon crew and had his thumb over the vent, like Cushing. Unlike Cushing, however, he was wearing a leather thumb guard. So I got out a bandanna which I wet with water from my canteen, and gently wrapped his thumb and walked him over to a paramedic. Horrible.

A few more vivid memories: the onlookers, who shouted with gladiatorial delight whenever somebody took a particularly dramatic hit, cursed and swore at us after the accident, when we wheeled the cannon away. Also, an hour or so later, when we got to my sister-in-law's house, I heard a news report on the radio that "...a man had been hit in the chest with a cannon ball at a Civil War reenactment in Provo." Nice fact-checking, there, like we fire cannon balls at one another during reenactments! After people had been hauled away by the paramedics a pumper truck drove up, sprayed water on the area where the blood was and the cloggers started dancing on the stage nearby. The whole thing was surreal. (There are other details - but I'll spare you.)

This was my first major reenactment; not surprisingly, perhaps, I have refused to be anywhere near artillery when they fire, and will not help move an artillery piece.

Speaking of artillery... on Sunday night we attended a party at a church friend's house. Turns out, he lives across the street from Springfield's famous "Cannon Man" of Greeley Boulevard. I've always wondered about this guy - is he a reenactor? I've driven by the house a number of times. He has big iron cannon tubes on his front porch, in a row, most of which face my friend's house! My friend is a career Army officer and has determined that the cannons do not constitute a threat to his house or family, but still... how would you like to look out your bedroom window and see the business end of a five inch cannon staring you in the face?

29 Mar 2010

Happy Birthday Meredith! My youngest child is twenty today. "It doesn't seem possible" is what we always say on occasions like this, but there is no other way to express it. I no longer have a teenager. Geez, where does the time go?

The yard sale season got off to a triumphant start Saturday morning with the purchase of a great white elephant gift: a full head Hillary Clinton mask ($1). I bought it from a German woman who said, "Schare de children for Halloween!" Indeed. I also bought a cool little German wooden index card box from her.

We are finally finished with the Great Hardwood Flooring Project, hooray! (Photos here - the finished ones are at the end, of course.) We get our rooms back... it's nice to be able to walk around the house without having to worry about stepping on tools, furniture, bits of wood, etc. I also get my life back in the evenings and can once again work on piano practice, etc. The only thing we have left to do is to get a piece of milled wood for the base of the patio doors to cover the black plastic that has Cari so roiled. Also, we ordered a Persian runner rug for the hallway - that should be coming in, soon. The rooms look much better - the wood really brings out the colors in the furnishings. Cari is very happy. And when she's happy, I'm happy.

We figure the installation work we did was probably worth a few thousand dollars. It was actually kind of fun. When asked by friends, "Would you do it again?" we say "Sure." So now I have my hardwood flooring merit badge in addition to my plumbing, parenting, rugby and reenacting badges, etc.

Last night I finished the last episode of season 4 of Top Gear which means I have seen every episode of Top Gear (since its 2002 reboot). As I'm fond of saying, I now have something in common with unemployed young louts in Great Britain who sit around and watch reruns on Dave (a British TV channel). Some observations:

1.) I think it is the best show currently on the air. It is enormously entertaining. BBC really knew what they were doing when they gave Jeremy Clarkson and his school pal carte blanche to develop the new Top Gear format.

2.) The very first statement in show 1 season 1 is Clarkson saying, "This is a car show." But it really isn't. It's really more a show about men and cars, and oftentimes just about men. And therein is its appeal. Anyone can produce a car show. But to produce the entertaining jackassery that is Top Gear takes some thought and insight about male nature. (A good article that illustrates my point is here.)

3.) The presenters rate cars, but reliability almost never plays a part in their assessments. I suspect it's because they don't have to repair their own cars. Having to continually fix the Alfa-Romeos, Jaguars, Fiats, Lancias and Renaults they go on about would cure them of that.

4.) There is a pronounced bias towards British cars (Jaguars, Aston-Martins, TVRs, Range Rovers, etc.). It's a BBC show so it's understandable. But the constant slagging off of American cars gets on my nerves. On one show the boys drove cars through Alabama and got rocks thrown at them by rednecks. I'm a little sorry one didn't bounce one off Clarkson's head...

5.) Clarkson's going on and on about the exquisite lines of the Aston-Martin DB9 is puzzling. It looks like a Dodge or a Chrysler to me...

6.) Jenson Button is the Stig. You read it here first.

26 Mar 2010

One of the great joys of Civil War reenacting is looking at Rebs, who are endlessly entertaining. Whether tubby and bearded or rednecky, lean and scary, they provide a constant visual show.

Back in April 1990, at the end of the 125th anniversary series of events, we did an Appomattox Surrender at the actual park. We Yanks lined up on both sides of the street and watched the Rebs march by, halt, stack arms and march away.

Despite the solemnity of the affair it was hard to do this without giggling, some of the Rebs looked so outrageously funny. I recall that at one point my pards and I just managed to regain our solemnity when Bozo the Clown Reb - a fellow with sticky-out flaming red hair wearing striped light blue pants - hove into view, provoking another round of suppressed laughter and wet eyes. In order to maintain dignity (we kept getting glares from our officers) my pard Don finally had to remove his glasses so he couldn't see well. I started looking elsewhere and noted that a boy had climbed a tree just above a company of men with bayonets affixed to their rifles; I wondered what might happen if he lost his grip on the branch he was holding. Fortunately, he didn't.

The surrender was captured by a talented artist friend, Bob Fleming, in a piece he did for the unit newsletter I edited at the time: "Faces From Appomattox!" I call your attention to the fellow we named "The Glaring Sergeant." I recently posted a link to the Appomattox piece on my friend Bob's Facebook page, which provoked a chilling bit of information from another pard about The Glaring Sergeant. The moral here is, within the ranks of the Reb reenactment army may be guys like Johnny Cash, who "...shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die." (The other moral is, Know Who You're Tenting With!)

A feature of the David Bowie book I'm reading are embarrassing confessions by the author as to what Bowie meant to him when he was younger. These show up in italics and are always cringe-worthy. For instance, the author once unleashed his inner Bowie on his parents and family when he admitted that he made out with a man to see what it was like. When nobody asked, he said it was the same as with a female - but with stubble.

I had no such moments. I liked Bowie's music when I was a teen, but realized that he wasn't a jived-up spaceman sent down to earth to enlighten mankind. He was and is a show business pro. After all, he studied mime and dance to be able to move on the stage; wrote, arranged and played his own music; wrote for, arranged and produced the music of others and acted. The only essential difference between David Bowie and Sonny Bono was makeup.

The good or bad thing about a love of classical music is that it makes it difficult to take pop and rock acts seriously. Sure, I like rock music. But there's always the inner sense that I'm intellectually slumming by doing so. And as for trying to change the world with an elpee's worth of toons (as Todd Rundgren once memorably phrased it) - please. If a symphonist's output is a multi-volume set of weighty books, a three minute pop or rock song is a photocopied handout at best. A three minute AABA format song, after all, is in modified sonata form - a sort of a dumbed-down symphonic piece. Even with words - and good ones - you cannot approach the nuance, meaning and impact that a longer symphonic piece can have. And now that I have established myself as a music snob it's perhaps time to change the subject.

We're almost done with the dining room; we just have a few details to attend to. This weekend we clean all the dust we kicked up and put things back to rights. Hooray! It bugs me to have to navigate by piles of tools and wood, boxes, etc, on the floors.

My paean to my home town, "You Know You're From Burbank If..." I don't live in Burbank and haven't since 1980, but the fact that I don't is directly attributable to Burbank. When I was in high school I was required to take a U.S. History class in 1973; it was my good fortune that this was taught by one Pete Peterson (himself a Burbank High grad). He had a great sense of humor and an incredible enthusiasm for the American Civil War, and showed us his slides from battlefields. His enthusiasm caught on to me, and I started reading every book on the subject I could lay my hands upon. The Civil War became a major interest for me.

My interest subsided when I joined the Marines and thereafter. But, like a spark in a dry patch of wood, it caught on again when I watched the 1982 CBS broadcast of the "Blue and the Gray" and discovered Civil War reenacting. (In Utah!) When I graduated from college in 1984 a job offer from the National Security Agency in Maryland looked very good... not the least of the reasons why was because it put me within striking distance of Gettysburg, Harper's Ferry, Antietam, Manassas, etc. We moved to Maryland in 1984, to Virginia in 1987 and have lived happily here ever since. Thank you Pete Peterson and Burbank!

By the way, I learned through the Burbank network that Mr. Peterson is now 88 and in somewhat poor health. I recently sent his daughter an e-mail telling the story above and expressing my gratitude for his class, which she read to him. I hope it cheered him. Mr. Peterson did what all great teachers want to do: teach and inspire.

Well, great weekend coming up. Put the house back to rights. Maybe even a yard sale or two tomorrow morning if the rain holds off... I'm looking forward to doing that again. Have a great weekend!

25 Mar 2010

Posted some Burbank photos from what I think are the 1940's on my Burbankia page. It's funny... last night I dreamed that I once again lived in the Burbank house on Lincoln St. in which I grew up, except that the paint was peeling and generally needed repairs. Maybe this was my way of telling myself to update my Burbank web site!

We got some more hardwood flooring down last night, and I did some painting. Same routine tonight and tomorrow...

I got to the part in my David Bowie book where his eye got damaged. As you may know, one of Bowie's eyes are green, the other blue. One is dilated, the other not. In his early publicity, Bowie claimed that this was due to an accident while playing American football. (As hard to believe as this is, Bowie being so rail thin, yes, he actually did play some neighborhood gridiron football as a child. Or tried to.) The real explanation is somewhat more prosaic.

At age 14 (Spring, 1961) he cut in on his best friend with a girl. The friend got angry and punched him, damaging the eye and leaving it permanently dilated. At first this caused Bowie some embarrassment, then became a marketable feature when he took up his spacey Ziggy Stardust persona, causing normally sensible writers to draw improbable metaphors about his abilities to see things with his inner eye, etc.

It's hard to believe that I overlooked some hobo material last spring when I was really into it, but apparently I did. Google books has "Beggars of Life: A Hobo Autobiography" by Jim Tully, who was one of the originators of the "hard-boiled" school of pulp writing that produced the novels which fueled film noir. (The hobo/film noir connection!) Sadly, I cannot print this book - I must read it online. Ugh.

Speaking of film noir, last night I watched "The Naked Street" (1955), another Farley Granger noir. It was... okay. Anthony Quinn played a crime boss. As I watched it, I realized I had a few degrees separation from him. (A game I often play.) It goes like this: In 1968 my mother - a waitress - started working at a rather famous Burbank restaurant called Sargent's. The food was wonderful, once you got past the menu, which was written in an odd hillbilly slang. (Mom used to get annoyed with people trying to pronounce the food as written.) The hush puppies are still a Burbank legend, along with Martino's teacakes and Santoro's subs - but I digress.

The owners were named Marvis and Graham Quinn, and they filled the place with antiques. Just as you entered there was an enormous grandfather clock which I coveted badly; it was taller than I was and had a wonderfully painted landscape/seascape moon dial. When Marvis and Graham closed Sargent's in 1971, they opened up an antiques store in nearby Studio City. Since Graham's name was really Anthony Quinn, they named the place "Anthony Quinn Antiques."

Well, yes, you guessed it. They got a visit from Anthony Quinn's lawyer who told them to cease and desist doing business with that name. I forget what happened after that. As Graham's name was properly Anthony Quinn I don't think the legal action got anywhere. One of them died soon afterwards and the antiques store closed. So I am Mother, Graham Quinn, Anthony Quinn's lawyer, Anthony Quinn - 4 degrees of separation from the actor. Haw!

24 Mar 2010

While at Bentonville I got a look at an inferior new statue of Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston (seen at left) at the site, here and here. Other than saying that the pose looks like Captain Morgan (you know, the guy on the rum bottles), except he's pointing, I can't precisely define what makes this such an unconvincing statue. But I don't have to. A simple look at this older one in Dalton, Georgia will assure you - no comparison!

But this new statue of Johnston isn't the worst statue of a Confederate leader, however - not by a far sight. I am confident that that dubious distinction goes to an unbeatable whopper of a statue of Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest in Nashville. I can't say as I'm surprised. There is something about Bedford Forrest that inspires bad Civil War themed art, a phenom I have long recognized and call "Forrestry." Perhaps it's because he was an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan and attracts nutjobs - I don't know.

In addition to 600,000 dead Americans who died between 1861 and 1865, Southern Confederacy has much bad art in general which can be laid at its door. (Some of it is displayed here.) So, you see, this is why my enthusiasm is muted when I hear people say The South Will Rise Again. I get a mental image of something like this.

Okay, here's a creepy story. Back in 1990 I did an Appomattox surrender as the final event of the 125th anniversary series of events. It was memorable, to say the least. My pard Bob did a "Faces of Appomattox" piece about it for the unit newsletter, which I was editing and writing for at the time. One face stood out to everyone, the Glaring Sergeant. Based on life, this fellow had marched by in the surrender and gave Bob a mean glare. Ha ha - what a goober, etc. I just found out today that Bob and Jed, a friend we had in common, knew the guy; he had actually killed somebody when he was a teenager and was in prison until he was 21! So the moral of the story is some of those funny looking guys in gray at events may actually have been killers...

My book reading has become dumbed-down as of late. I am now reading "Bowie" by Marc Spitz, a book about a rock star. I used to waste my time reading books about the Who, then felt somewhat guilty as these weren't topics I considered "improving." I liked David Bowie's music when I was a teen in high school - I still do, I'm just nowhere as interested - because glam rock was "in" in 1972-1974. Now I feel ashamed that I bought into that... oh, well, I was young. (And in my defense I shall mention that I was also listening to Bartok and Stravinsky.) I must say, rock owes Bruce Springsteen a great deal. He pulled pop music out of the Ziggy Stardust silliness and back onto the ground where it belongs.

Last night's film noir was a very late entry: "Angel's Flight" (1965), which was shot in the Bunker Hill skid row district around Los Angeles' celebrated funicular railway. It wasn't bad! Better than I thought it would be. It wasn't so much a formulac film noir as it was a noir-exploitation hybrid. The protagonist, a stripper who carried mental scars from having been raped, dies at the end by falling from the Angel's Flight. Well, it appears that's what happened. The film's producers didn't get permission to film in the area and had to cease, so it ended abruptly.

Bunker Hill has been a favored location for many noir scenes. Robert Mitchum as Philip Marlowe found himself there questioning a drunken lady, expatriated Indians were featured there in the docu-noir "the Exiles" (1961), the area was seen in the 1951 remake of "M," and in "Kiss Me, Deadly" Mike Hammer famously climbed up the long flight of steps alsongside the railway to interrogate a fearful, hapless man. (Hammer: "Whew! Long flight of stairs!" Woman: "So who asked you to climb them?") Next time I'm in Los Angeles I'm visiting the area, which has become all the more of an attraction since they recently reopened the Angel's Flight. I haven't been on it since I was a little boy in the early Sixties.

We got some more hardwood flooring down in the dining room; we should be able to finish it tonight. (No Webelos meeting, so I get a free evening.)

23 Mar 2010

Roosters are thoroughly annoying. One woke me up at zero dark thirty in the morning on both Saturday and Sunday. I have no idea where the farm was.... I couldn't see a one anywhere around the camps. But you sure could hear that rooster crow through the woods, though.

I'm suffering from post-reenactment maladjustment syndrome (PRMS). During the weekend I was in an exciting, constantly changing, interesting environment. Today it's business meetings and the same old, same old. Gak. This happens every time after an enjoyable reenactment weekend. One of my myriad problems is that I constantly crave entertainment and stimulation. If I could learn to extract the manifest delights and interest of somebody droning on about a workplace process and strategy I'd be far happier.

I sure like that little Canon point and click camera I have; it has revolutionized my reenactment photography. It slips into my sack coat pocket where it can be whipped out quickly, boots up right away and takes great shots. One technique I like is to simply hold it up and fire without looking. Interesting things happen. For instance, this Saturday morning shot. You always read not to shoot into the sun - but in this instance it produced unusual lighting and really neat sunbeams.

Or this shot, from the seven and a half foot level (me holding the camera up as high as possible). You get great facial expressions in the foreground which turn into a mass of blue with distance. This shot was called to my attention by the guys in the trench, who were greatly amused by the sight of an overweight Reb - redundant phrasing? - on an all terrain vehicle. My camera doesn't have much of a telephoto lens, but the resolution was high enough to provide for a decent enlargement. (I always shoot with the highest possible resolution.)

But reenacted battlefield shots almost always look static - generally guys standing in a field surrounded by black powder smoke. It's not like rugby, where you can train the camera on the guy with the ball and get action and great facial expressions. For instance, there was actually a lot going on when I took this shot - firing, yelling, confusion, running about - but you don't really see that from the photo. (This shot is somewhat better - the guy yelling in the foreground tells you that something is going on.) A pity. In fact, I have yet to see a photo that really captures the interest when guys start firing quickly and things get heated.

My pard Chris used some software to knit images together for a panorama shot. I think I'll try that next time...

Ever since the big 125th anniversary of Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg in 1988, somebody blows "Taps" at the end of the battle. (Bentonville taps photo.) At Gettysburg it was amazing: one minute there are 10,000 guys firing muskets and cannon - an incredible din - the next a weird silence on the field with one bugle blowing taps. Subsequent efforts have been less successful. On Saturday at Bentonville, for instance, the blowhard on the public address system was talking during the trumpet call. And there are always units off in the field who don't get it and are clearing their muskets at the time. On Sunday it was played twice, which sort of took away from the whole effort, like a "Nobody moves until we get it right" kind of thing.

The Great Hardwood Flooring Project has resumed. We should be done with the dining room - and the project - by the end of the week. Hooray! Major cleaning needed, then. We threw dust everywhere during the demolition/construction process. It'll be nice to get my house back to rights. It bugs me when things (tools, wood scraps, etc.) are all over the place. I like rooms to be just so, not cluttered.

22 Mar 2010

Back from Bentonville, which was a lot of fun! A solid 8 on the Event-O-Meter.

Captioned Bentonville photos on my Picasa web album.

I am now hoarse and unshaven with a dirty rifle to clean and a hardwood floor to put down in the dining room.

I see those rogues and scoundrels in Congress passed an unconstitutional health care bill in an unconstitutional fashion while I was away. Vote out all incumbents in November, I say. Politicians and diapers need to be changed frequently and for the same reason.

Enough.

19 Mar 2010

With the installation of our patio door the Great Hardwood Flooring Project is once again underway. All we have left is the dining room. We'll start that next week. I'd like to be able to do it this weekend and finish things up, but today I drive to North Carolina for the 145th anniversary Battle of Bentonville. I'll post photos on Monday...

OK Go's Rube Goldberg video ("This Too Shall Pass"). Verrrry clever. An interesting account of the "making of" is here. I note that this video was shot in a warehouse in the Echo Park section of Los Angeles; when I was a little boy my father used to take me here to feed popcorn to the ducks in the pond... after that one needed to visit the area armed and ready to rumble.

OK Go are the guys who did the highly-regarded treadmill video ("Here It Goes Again"). Now I'd imagine they are in the same situation M. Night Shyamalan was in after his first few films: Okay, smart guy, what do you do next for novelty?

I started to watch a promising film noir last night, then had to go to bed: Finger Man (1955). Perhaps a note of explanation about that movie title is in order! To "put the finger on" means to identify for the police, to testify against. The idea is that perennial noir tough guy Frank Lovejoy (he'd have to be a tough guy with a surname like that) infiltrates the mob, then turns state's evidence. Finger Man has among its attributes the presence of nut job actor Timothy Carey, whom I have blogged about before.

Finally, Gentle Reader, I now delve into politics - an area I usually avoid on this blog. This Health Care bill effort by the Democrats has me greatly agitated. Don't get me wrong... I support health care reform. We have the best health care in the world, but it's simply too expensive. Currently my son (a college student) and his wife do not have health insurance and they need it. I believe that intelligent and incremental laws taking into account our free market system can and should be made.

But.

My kids and I have been taught in schools that the U.S. Constitution spells out specific and limited powers for the Federal government and more general powers by the various States. Where, then, is the constitutional authority for the Federal government to compel Americans to purchase health insurance? ("Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." - George Washington) Nowhere. This is tyranny.

And Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi states, "We have to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it." This is unbelievably irresponsible. Really, is this any way to run a government? I'd like to resurrect the old-tymey practice of running her out of the House tarred and feathered, sitting astride a log.

And that mewling, pathetic Senate Majority Leader whose contemptible name I refuse to type... in 2007 he stated that the Iraq war was lost - while our troops were and are waging it. If that is not giving aid and comfort to our enemies, I don't know what is.

OK Go - something I am chomping at the bit to tell Congress in November.

Excuse me. If I have annoyed you I apologize, but I had to get that out of my system.

Have a great weekend...

18 Mar 2010

I was in the library the other day and looked through their box of old Lps, as is my wont; they frequently have new ones. And they're only fifty cents - a good yard sale price. I came across this Lp by Jay and the Americans. (Who?) I've seen worse album covers, but check out the two guys on the right. The guy preparing the cover couldn't find a shot where they didn't look like two comatose dorks? Or at least looking at the camera?

Last night I watched, or, rather, fell asleep during, an RKO romantic thriller (I can't call it a proper film noir) "Mystery in Mexico" (1948). It was just over an hour... I like those wartime and postwar RKO quickies. They're rather like a pleasant relative who stops by to cheer you up and leaves before his company becomes tiresome. Occasionally, as with the RKO Val Lewton horror films or "Citizen Kane," they can be very, very good. But most of the time they're just pleasant.

And they also have a cool logo.

My youngest daughter Meredith went to Disneyland with two Utah girlfriends yesterday (Spring break)... what fun! This photo has reference to a story during one visit to the park; she was five. Mom bought her a Micky hat, and she said, "When Daddy sees me he'll want to take a photograph." Indeed.

I'm about ready for another trip. It's been... let's see... five years since I last went. I've been to Disney Orlando before - it's bigger and with more attractions, but, for this native Southern Californian, it's just not the same. For one thing, there's no drop in the dark at the beginning of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride like there is in Anaheim. Orlando is far bigger, with plenty of land. In Anaheim, the Disney engineers had to put the ride underground because of the lack of land, hence the drop and the boat escalator at the end. What was a physical constraint turned out to be a feature.

It's the same thing with the Haunted Mansion ride... the stretching portrait room - a big elevator - was an engineering solution to a lack of space. (Once again, the ride is partially underground, partially in what used to be part of the parking lot.)

For the record, the Haunted Mansion is my favorite ride. My Mom and I went to the park when it first opened in August, 1969. Lonnnggg lines - but totally worth it. I had dreams about the attraction before we went - how odd is that? At the spot where the ride lets you off there was a low metal railing. I made a Dyno label that said, "Wes Clark Was Here" and stuck it in a discrete place under the railing, where you had to know where it was to find it. It had been painted over a number of times but was still in place when I last checked for it in, I think it was, 1985! Sixteen years! The railing was removed when Splash Mountain was built.

Our sense of smell is very evocative, and I maintain that the Haunted Mansion ride and the Small World ride at Disneyland have their own unique smells. (It's perhaps the ride mechanism - and with Small World, the water - being circulated by the air conditioning system.) Whenever I visit these attractions and take in a deep breath, BAM, I'm transported back to my youth. We don't have time machines, but this is the next best thing.

17 Mar 2010

Last night I was tromping around in my attic, attaching a connector onto a piece of 50 ohm cable in order to feed an existing antenna lead downstairs to my basement. Now I can get digital broadcasts to my main television in the basement via a box. It doesn't look as good as the high definition stuff displayed on the small modern HD TV we put in the bedroom earlier this year, but it'll do for a while. Now we can get rid of Cox cable and I can watch the Retro Television Channel downstairs! It's funny, being on cables of various kinds for television since the early Eighties, we're back to over the air broadcasts via an antenna... we've come full circle.

The antenna I have in the attic is a cheap VHF type; it works, but just barely. What I really need is a modern antenna optimized for digital reception with a roof mount. But as my roof is very high and steeply pitched, I won't be climbing around up there to install it!

I like the little stories that are sometimes attached to songs. Here's a good one - the Johnny Carson Tonight Show/Annette Funicello connection (from a website): "In 1962, when Johnny Carson took over the NBC Tonight Show from Jack Parr, he commissioned Paul Anka for a new theme song. Paul suggested a song that he had already written called 'Toot Sweet.' After a lyric was added in 1959 it was re-named 'It's Really Love' and under that title, was recorded by Annette Funicello on her LP, 'Annette Sings.' Under a deal with Carson, Johnny became the 'author' for copyright purposes and got a piece of not only the publishing but the composer's share too. Both Anka and Carson's names were listed as writers and the two began collecting BMI performance royalties. The pair got $200 in royalties every time the show aired... and it ran for 32 years, 52 weeks a year, 5 nights a week -- which works out to $1,664,000.00 -- not bad for an old tune that had been re-cycled."

I am now reading "Songs and Music of the Redcoats - 1642-1902" by Lewis Winstock. It's the culmination of a series of discoveries. Back in 1986 a reenactor friend gave me a cassette tape of what he thought was interesting military music. A couple of songs stood out, and one ("How Stands the Glass Around?") became a favorite due to its mournful, archaic melody. Inquiring, I found that it was from a 1970 LP entitled "The Songs of the Redcoats." Years later I finally found an obscure 1971 Lp of this from another reenactor, who kindly lent it to me so that I could record it. As it turns out, the book I am now reading was the inspiration for the album.

I had always read that "How Stands the Glass Around?" was a favorite of British General Wolfe, who died at the Battle of Quebec in 1759. He reportedly sang it himself the evening the before the battle. But, as might be expected with tales like this, the book debunks this story. By melody and lyrical content, however, I can see why generations of listeners might repeat that story - it suits the song.

I didn't watch any noirs last night, but I did watch a wonderfully creative episode of Top Gear. This one featured a 100 mile race between a Ford Ka and a flock of pigeons (some of which had tiny cameras attached to them for funny pigeon cam shots). The pigeons won. This episode also featured car darts - that is, launching junker cars via a compressed nitrogen ram into a quarry which had a giant dart board design painted on the ground. (You can watch it here.)

By the way, I am reasonably certain I have seen that quarry in numerous old episodes of Dr. Who.

I am only six episodes away from saying that I have seen every episode of all 14 seasons of Top Gear... an accomplishment I probably share with unemployed British chavs. When I finish I'll write a summary blog entry.

(NOTE: A chav is a yob; actually, chav is the more recent term. They both describe working class young males - usually jobless. While looking up the terms, I came across this interesting phrase: prole drift. I have read Fussell's book Class - it's fascinating. It's worth noting that in hobo slang, a Yob is the worst sort of hobo, one who acquires young drifters - punks - as a sort of apprentice beggar and other foul uses.)

I love words.

16 Mar 2010

Gahhh. There's a Gorillaz Stylo video that shows the malnourished-looking bunch in full CGI animation. Creepy. 1.) Why is Bruce Willis in this? 2.) The mask worn on 2D's head looks like a Jack-in-the-Box face, 3.) If you look at Willis' El Camino when he rams the Camero you can see that the frame is backwards. Given that this thing is digitally composed, I wonder why.

For fans of Hamlet Gonashvili, of which my son and I may be the only ones, this. Very soothing.

I love quality Brit noirs, and I saw one last night: "Nowhere to Go" (1958). Sometimes with old films there is the thrill of discovery: This film is great! How come I've never heard of it? What a excellent cast, script and direction. This film should be better known than it is... etc. All apply here. It's Maggie Smith's first film. (Seen above - you know, Professor McGonagle in the Harry Potter films.) It also stars Bernard Lee, whom I have seen in a number of older non-James Bond productions. (He was underutilized as "M.") The true star, however, is the black and white cinematography, which is suitably bleak. This film was a nicely drawn criminal study.

Big weekend coming up: me and my pards drive down to North Carolina for the 145th anniversary Battle of Bentonville reenactment. While I've been doing Civil War reenacting on and off since 1983, I've never done this event, which is held on the original battlefield. It involves a road trip - Bentonville is about a five hour drive south. I don't do that sort of thing too often, preferring to stay in the greater D.C. Metro area.

And why am I writing about the weekend? It's only Tuesday - sigh.

15 Mar 2010

Regarding last week's note about abandoned Detroit buildings, a reader sent me this link showing abandoned buildings on Long Island. Some of these places still have furniture and other goods in them... Amazing!

I saw a cheap and cheesy film noir over the weekend, "Hell Bound" (1957). Film noir is the only art form I can think of that sometimes benefits by a cast of unknowns and a restricted budget! It suits the subject matter. This one, being a late period entry, was somewhat more suggestive than previous noirs, depicting a junkie suffering from a withdrawal, a stripper in action and the beating of an abortionist (with some of the loudest slapping action foley I have ever heard). I suspect that back in 1957 this would not have been considered a suitable film for all audiences and possibly had a limited play in theaters.

The chase scene at the end with the baddie and the cops benefited from some good location scouting; it took place in what looked like a wall of stacked and rusting trolley cars located somewhere near Wilmington, CA - the Port of Los Angeles. At the end the crim takes refuge in an empty rail car, only to have a few tons of scrap steel dropped onto him by a guy in a crane - cool!

I saw another noir and a semi-noir over the weekend as well, but Hell Bound is the one that stood out as the best.

Speaking of film making, I have a new hero: Robbins Barstow, auteur filmmaker. He is now ninety, but back in 1956 - the year I was born! - when he was a young father, he and his family won a dream vacation to Southern California and Disneyland, which he filmed. Watch it here - it is marvelous; do-it-yourself family home movie film making of the highest caliber. I especially liked the sequence where his cheery wife pulls out a tiny, compressed bag, which, by the magic of movie making, contained cheeseburgers for the family.

What really struck me about this film, in addition to capturing of the then current rides and attractions, is just how under-grown and new the park looks. Nowadays it has mature shrubbery and plantings, but back then it had only been open a year and looks it. (This is especially notable in the Jungle Cruise sequence.) But the chief interest in this work is the depiction of a normal, happy 1950's family on vacation... common back then, but now truly wonderful and heart-warming.

The Disneyland film made it into Congress' National Film Registry - for good reason. I see Robbins' other home movies are on archive.org - I will certainly be watching these. As a kid in 1936 he did a Tarzan production with himself and some of the local girls... can't wait to see that one!

The subject matter of the book I'm currently reading is too embarrassing to discuss. Here's a clue.

My son pointed out some links to the new Gorillaz release, "Plastic Beach." From what I've heard of it, I like it. One song, "Stylo," has been stuck in my head since yesterday. I'm way out of Gorillaz' target demographics and shouldn't like them (it's primarily a two man show, as I understand), but I do. The Gorillaz animation is amusing... they look mal-nourished, vaguely sinister and snaggle-toothed. It's art that takes partial inspiration from street graffiti, I suppose. Not at all the Barstow family.

I have a problem with a piano piece - "Song" by Anton Diabelli (1781-1858). Given that it's from the early classical era it's meant to be played "dry," that is, no pedal. But it sounds just like some Edvard Grieg lyric pieces I'm aware of, so I want to play it in a late Romantic style, with pedal and expression. What's more, the initial melody is so good that it needs a repeat that isn't noted - I may add one when I play it for my teacher. Normally I am strongly against this sort of thing - the piece should be played as the composer says it should - but I make break my own aesthetic rule, here. Besides, what I have is a simplified version for beginners. Perhaps the full published version is different.

Finally, I spent some time at the library on Saturday, pulling down images of census records, but they are just puzzle pieces right now. I need the bit of information that starts making sense of the whole thing. Specifically, what I need to do is look at Mercer Co., NJ deeds. When I get to Utah later this year I'll spend some time at the big family history library in Salt Lake City, where everything, including the deeds, are on reels of microfilm that can be easily removed from the cabinets and searched. My working hypothesis is that the William Clark who appears in the 1840 Nottingham, NJ census living near Restore Gaskill is a relative of my great-great-grandfather Wesley Clark (who had Restore as a father-in-law). William may have been been Wesley's father; the relative ages are right. But I have no evidence yet, and "genealogy without documentation is mythology."

12 Mar 2010

"M" stands for Murder - it also stands for "M" (1951), a film noir I saw last night that I've been waiting about a decade to see. A perceptive review is here. I agree with the writer - it is under-appreciated. The problem is that it gets compared with the 1931 Fritz Lang/Peter Lorre classic - and comes up wanting. But what wouldn't? It's the same story, but set in the decaying Bunker Hill area of Los Angeles during the classic period of film noir; it works beautifully. And it should... after all German Expressionism led to the American noir movement.

With the rise of Hitler in Germany, intellectuals fled Germany for the United States, some of them filmmakers who later became creators of influential films noir: Fritz Lang, Otto Preminger, Billy Wilder, Robert Siodmak, etc. When they started working here they took their techniques, camera angles and lighting with them. So German expressionism can be seen as one of the influences upon American film noir. (Another being pulp literature by the likes of Cornell Woolrich, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, etc.)

Getting back to "M," I'm always up for viewing a film set in old-time Los Angeles, a city I know fairly well. An extended sequence of this film is shot in the old Bradbury Building, home of many a film noir interior shot. It still stands! Next time I'm in L.A. I'm paying a visit.

Last year, when I was reading about hobos, I came across an account of Abdul Rahim's breaking and entering visit into the Michigan Central Depot - the grand old railway terminal - in downtown Detroit. (Yes, a fellow named Abdul Rahim does freighthopping in a post 9/11 environment.) It was fascinating. And last month I saw a Top Gear sequence where Jeremy Clarkson visited the abandoned downtown section of Detroit and raced a Ford GT around. This led me to do some reading about downtown Detriot - which has apparently turned into the urban hell predicted by David Bowie in his 1974 Diamond Dogs album! ("No more big wheels. Fleas the size of rats sucked on rats the size of cats, and ten thousand peoploids split into small tribes coveting the highest of the sterile skyscrapers like packs of dogs assaulting the glass fronts of Love Me Avenue ...")

Check these out:

Feral houses in Detroit - My son and his friend used to enjoy poking around in abandoned homes. (Who wouldn't? I'd love to.) They'd have in blast in Detroit!

Feral dog packs - "A lot of people are saying that because of the dogs, they're sometimes trapped in their homes,'' said Donyale Stephen, an assistant city ombudsman."

Michigan Central Depot - Where Abdul the hobo visited.

Forgotten Detroit - Lots of great photos here!

I wonder if I can convince my wife to do an industrial tourism visit to downtown Detroit... Perhaps we can find a dead body in an abandoned building, like Charlie LeDuff did.

No, I don't think she'll be up for that.

(By the way, I read "US Guys - The True and Twisted Mind of the American Man" by Charlie LeDuff last year. Excellent book.)

Have a great weekend!

11 Mar 2010

Last night I played "the Body English Game" (essentially, Charades) with twelve ten year-old boys... it was pretty noisy but they all had fun. Needless to say, the most enthusiastic performance came when one pantomimed "idiotic." And, as one might expect, by far the most difficult one to convey was "serene."

Last night's film noir was "Flaxy Martin" (1949), "Flaxy" being the name of the femme fatale, so called - I guess - because she's a blond, as are most femme fatales in noir. The brunettes tend to be the good girls - and this film did indeed have a brunette good girl. Flaxy is the kind of gal who has ice in her bloodstream and no compunction whatsoever about betraying men. She can also sit at her parlor grand piano and play the title music to the movie - I always think that's weird when that sort of thing happens. It's a musical way of hammering home the fact that this is a movie - and perhaps the characters really know it.

The film's memorable set piece was an evocative and well-staged pursuit sequence in and out of the shadows and alleys of Warner Brothers' "New York" street which was really located in - wait for it - Burbank, California.

The beginning of the sequence had its own frisson. It started with the protagonist arriving at the apartment of a thug, located in a squalid, deserted street at, say, 3 AM. In the room, an untended record player endlessly plays the playout groove of an Lp. (Perhaps the Flaxy Martin theme song?) The thug is dead on his mattress, shot in the chest. The phone rings, the protagonist answers it. It's the murderer (in this case, the always fun Elisha Cook, Jr.), who spookily taunts the protagonist. He leaves the apartment and the chase is on - great stuff. In fact, I normally pitch the VHS tape after I've seen the movie; this one's a saver.

I used some French words... did you catch them? The French have always been influential and perceptive critics of American art. We can forgive them their odd enthusiasm for Jerry Lewis films because they gave us an appreciation for Edgar Allen Poe -- and film noir. Let's look at some of these words and phrases which often appear in film criticism:

film noir: This phrase comes from an article by French critic Nino Frank in 1946. Due to World War II the French hadn't been able to see any American films. After the war they noticed that the optimistic and sunny Hollywood productions of the pre-war years had taken on a darker tone - hence film noir, or "black film." They characterized these films and cited the themes of the movement. The phrase began to catch on among American critics - and marketers. Nowadays just because it says "film noir" on the box, doesn't mean the film is really a noir.

frisson: Literally, a cold chill. It's the pleasant tingling feeling in the back of one's neck when a really well-executed or atmospheric movie scene takes place. Frisson is an emotionally-triggered response. I see this one appearing most often in connection with reviews of horror films, but it happens in film noir as well. I forget what television production it was - St. Elsewhere? - but the all time most notable frisson scene for me happened during a baby shower. The mother had been raped by a man wearing a ski mask; the last present the mother opened at the shower was a small ski mask, sent to her anonymously by the rapist. Ewwwww... frisson.

femme fatale: Literally, a fatal woman - a female who is death to men. It would be hard to say who the first cinematic femme fatale was; I suppose Theda Bara is as good a candidate as any. But the archetype is as old as Homer's sirens. As I mentioned above, most film noir femmes fatale are blondes; indeed, there are noirs with the word "blonde" in the title. ("Blonde Ice," "Blonde Dynamite," "Blond Alibi," etc.) Filmgoers of the era would know exactly what noirish femme fatale elements would be in a film with the word "blonde" in the title.

homme fatal: A fatal man, one such being Lawrence Tierney as John Dillinger. In film noir, a femme fatale can turn an ordinary man into a reluctant homme fatale.

mise en scene: This pesky word is hard to pin down because it's used so amorphously. Wikipedia says, in general, it's the design aspects of a production, but perhaps you can read the whole explanation here. I'm usually confused whenever I come across it!

auteur: A filmmaker whose artistic vision is individualistic and idiosyncratic, so much so that his vision surpasses, say, the scriptwriter's or the novelist's. Stanley Kubrick immediately jumps to mind. In film noir, it might be Sam Fuller, whose films are almost always over the top in some respect.

And that's French 101 for today.

10 Mar 2010

Washington Post Video Vault article. Last time I talked to Jim he told me that the Post reporter was coming by... Sigh.

Last night I went to the library to use their ancestry.com account and hunted around for some genealogical data. I found nothing conclusive, but did confirm a possibility. As a complete stranger informed me in a recent e-mail, a William Clark and my 3rd great grandfather Restore Gaskill are shown as living quite close to one another in Nottingham Township, New Jersey, in the 1840 census. I had checked the 1840 census many years before, of course, but the paper index I looked at doesn't have mention of this William Clark. He was apparently overlooked. He does show up in a computer search for the name, however. Score one for technology.

As I am looking for the parents of my 2nd great-grandfather Wesley Clark (who is described as being "of Nottingham" in an 1841 marriage record to Phebe Gaskill, Restore's daughter), and this Nottingham William Clark is described as being born between 1770 and 1780 (the generation before Wesley's), he could very well be related. He could be his father or grandfather. But I have no way of knowing from just this data alone; I need to do more research. Time to hit William Wade Hinshaw's seminal Quaker records for the nearby meeting house!

(Quaker genealogical research takes some getting used to. There are all sorts of funny abbreviations for the various activities - disowned, condemned, certificate - and then there's their idiosyncratic dating system. Because the months were named after pagans the Quakers used a numerical system. You might encounter "19th da 6th mo 1748" in Hinshaw, for example. This is August 19th, 1748. You can also see this notation in the Restore Gaskill funeral card, linked above. An interesting article is here.)

Last night I discovered some tax records that revealed that Wesley Clark ran a distillery during the Civil War! Here are the 1862 records. (There are more for 1863, 1864 and 1866.) Ever since I was a teenager I was hoping to find a direct ancestor who fought in the Civil War. Instead I find one who stayed on the farm and made booze. Swell. Well, somebody had to do it, I suppose.
Genealogy is a puzzle. For instance, I found mention of a Wesley Clark, a corn merchant, who was born somewhere in New Jersey in 1802 and died of consumption (pulmonary tuberculosis) in Philadelphia in 1860. Given an 1820 birth date for my Wesley Clark, he's just old enough to be his father. So who was he? Any relation? I have no idea.

I said genealogy is a puzzle - actually, it's more like an equation with many variables. You have a bit of information from one source that solves for one variable - then you plug that into another bit of information to solve another variable, etc. I once unraveled a will (concerning a son of Wesley Clark's) that, initially, made no sense at all to me until I started plugging in pieces of information I had gathered from elsewhere. Bit by bit a bunch of strange names revealed themselves as a family. It was fun and very gratifying!

I have a Webelos scout meeting tonight; I have no idea what the activity shall be. Something having to do with the communication pin. One of the requirements is, "Play the Body Language Game with your den." I think we'll do that... we'll see who can act and who can't.

What am I saying? Kids are born actors. My daughter Meredith displayed formidable acting skills at a very young age. She used to pretend that she was asleep in her car seat. My wife and I would act goofy and crack jokes to get her to break character but we couldn't. I knew then that when this kid lied to me I'd have a hard time telling...

My daughter Julie was an impressive actress, too. Both were in high school drama... I had many wonderful hours watching them on the stage.

9 Mar 2010

I finally gave up on that book about Anglo-Saxon feuds. Like Machiavelli's The Prince and Tolkien's Silmarillion, it became impossible to read; mired in eye-glazing past names, genealogies and situations. VERY dry. So it's off to the library tonight to find a new book. In my own defense I will admit that I hurriedly grabbed this book off the shelves as the library was closing and they were playing horrible, unendurable music over the P.A. system.

Besides... I need to check the library's ancestry.com patron account (not available online). I just got an interesting lead from a genealogist about a Clark name appearing in an 1840 Mercer County, New Jersey census record that I have overlooked or not found before. To make a long story short, I have been seeking the identity of my 3rd great-grandfather Clark; this is a plausible lead that, in turn, might lead to the documentary smoking gun I've been searching for: a deed that connects my ancestor with other Clarks than I can research.

I sort of feel like Charlie Brown when Lucy volunteers to place his football for him. I get enthusiastic - this could be the one! - and race ahead while the game's afoot, only to find another disappointment. This has been going on, by the way, since 1982, when I first learned the identity of my 2nd great-grandfather Wesley H. Clark. When I got his death record from the state of New Jersey and saw "Unknown" on the lines for his mother and father, I knew I was in for a difficult time... (What is really irksome was that when he died his wife was still alive. She must have known who her in-laws were! Who was being lazy, she or a county clerk?)

I watched a crackerjack film noir last night starring Glenn Ford and the luminous Janis Carter, Framed (1947). Film noir guru Eddie Mueller says it's "...the kind of film that we talk about when we try to describe what film noir is all about." Indeed - all the elements are there and well-played. A great little film. I quite enjoyed it. Thank you, Michael F. Keaney, for giving me the VHS tape!

It is again time to do a piece on one of those great, little-known character actors who pop up in old films every now and then. This time it's Frank Cady (appears above). My generation knows him best as Hooterville general store proprietor Sam Drucker on Green Acres and Petticoat Junction, but he had parts in some great film noirs, too: D.O.A., Ace in the Hole, the Asphalt Jungle, Rear Window, Flamingo Road, He Walked by Night and the Sellout.

Frank Cady had an amazing characteristic: he always looked old! He looked old in the 1960's when he was running Sam Drucker's General Store, but you'd think if you went back to the late 1940's to see him in a film you'd see a much younger man, right? Wrong! He looks about the same!

Scroll down here to read James Lileks' great take on the Asphalt Jungle - he makes the same observation I do about Cady. As I can't find any photographic evidence that the man was ever young, I must surmise that he exited the womb looking like Sam Drucker.

And I apologize for that horrible mental image.

Anyway, Cady portrayed likable, down-to-earth sensible guys and that seems to have been his real persona as well. A good quote: "What's the secret to playing Sam Drucker? I just play myself. Sam Drucker and I are old friends. I played him on Petticoat Junction, Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies and we were going strong until 1971, when Fred Silverman canceled every show with a tree in it."

Perhaps the most interesting fact about Frank Cady is that he is still alive at age 94! Interesting coincidence: Framed and the Sellout (the film I'm watching now) both have Hooterville residents in them, Frank Cady and Edgar Buchanan (Uncle Joe).

Last night I watched a season 3 episode of Top Gear that extolled the Mercedes Benz SL. I think it is probably the prettiest and most elegant-looking car ever built:

A 200 SL in red

1963-1971 picture gallery

A 300 SL gull wing in silver

When I was a teen I saw a number of 380 SL's in and around L.A., but while they, too, were nice they just didn't have that classic German design factor I really liked. The newest models do nothing for me. But that's fortunate - they are totally out of reach!

8 Mar 2010

Revolution at Lexington Green - in Lego!

It was about a perfect weekend. The weather here in Northern Virginia was warm enough to justify taking down the convertible top in the Volkswagen to drive around, so we did that on Saturday and Sunday. (And we will do this again later today!) What fun! Driving a convertible immediately lifts one's spirits. I saw the first yard sale sign of the season - which is kind of like spotting the first daffodil as a sign of spring - but didn't go to it on Saturday morning.

We also solved Cari's Persian rug dilemma... the new runner and front door area carpet arrive in a few weeks. Otherwise, we are still on a hold on the Great Hardwood Floor Project, waiting for the patio door replacement.

The only negative things about the weekend was that we went to Robek's for a smoothie on Saturday, and the inexpert kid made mine with unpleasant little bits of ice in it. I think he was preoccupied trying to impress a bunch of teenage field hockey players who showed up. Smoothies are called that for a reason. Cari ran her cell phone through the wash. It doesn't seem to be working, even after spending the evening in the rice jar to dry out - a remedy suggested to us by one of our kids.

On the piano front, I have a wifty, new age arpeggiated chord piece with heavy pedal to learn. My teacher doesn't like these - and neither do I, to be honest - but they're rather easy to play and I usually do well on them.

I saw another film noir that I've known about but have never seen, "Hell's Half Acre" (1954), which takes place in Hawaii. In fact, the beginning of the movie looks like a tourist board production of some kind, with palm trees swaying in the breeze, shots of happy natives doing the hula, surfing, etc. Until somebody takes a bullet in the middle of the forehead - then it turns into film noir.

This one had big, beautiful Marie Windsor in it, once again playing the part of the Wife from Hell, an act she pretty much owned. It also had Elsa Lanchester (you know her as Frankenstein's monster's wife) ridiculously miscast as a taxi cab driver from Wyoming - but with an impossible to conceal plummy English dialect. Finally, Wendell Corey played the leading man part unconvincingly. Beady eyed, with no real jaw line to speak of, he looked rather like Frank Burns on MASH.

It's funny... a kid came over to get his hair cut (Cari does that from time to time) and asked me who I wanted to win the Oscars. I told him I could care less; I haven't seen any of the films. He almost looked hurt. I didn't even know they were on last night... and I still don't know (or care) who won what. I suppose that information will find me at some point on the web...

Oh, all right, let's see... Avatar didn't win the Best Film Oscar. Good. Films starring blue people shouldn't. And... no, that's it. Lost interest. No more commentary forthcoming.

Finally, I watched a hilarious and engrossing special episode of Top Gear from late last year - their trip across Bolivia to Chile. How much of it was staged for television and how much of it was real is uncertain, of course. BUt is was great television. My opinion is that Top Gear is the best show currently airing on television, anywhere.

5 Mar 2010

I am now reading "Bloodfeud - Murder and Revenge in Anglo-Saxon England" by Richard Fletcher. People think Sicilians or the Hatfields and McCoys invented the feud - HA! I have always known that it was ingrained in early English society. Just read Beowulf.

My all time favorite account of a bloodfeud is the episode in Huckleberry Finn between the Grangerfords and the Shepherdsons. But, of course, the Montagues vs. the Capulets feud is pretty good, too. As is the Jets vs. the Sharks. Or Springfield vs. Rolling Valley. (That last one is an inside joke for friends and family.)

I watched a film noir last night - "Night Editor" (1946) - that had one wickedly kinky femme fatale. She and a police detective (shown above) are sitting in a car when another car, a convertible, rolls up. The driver, a male, gets out and beats the female passenger to death with a lead pipe and runs off. The detective checks out the crime scene and reports that the woman's head was smashed to a pulp. The woman he's with gets a weird look on her face and says, "I want to see it! I want to see it!" The cop, disgusted, shoves her into the car and they drive away.

Later on, the woman jams an ice pick into the cop's stomach (or back - I'm not sure which)...

The Hays Code was in effect in 1946 and so none of this is explicit, of course. And this level of violence really wasn't all that unusual for film noir - a genre where flaming crepes suzette are flung into a woman's face, men get ground up in various industrial machinery, the handicapped are pushed down stairs or off balconies, etc. - but it struck me as distinctively odd. Another painting in film noir's own Night Gallery.

It's probably worth mentioning that during the heyday of film noir, movies such as this were often decried as overly violent pulp sensationalism, lacking artistry. (Even a masterpiece like Huckleberry Finn was once called "veriest trash.") The word "pulp" doesn't have nearly the negative connotations that it had sixty years ago. Now, in fact, it's somewhat chic, and film noir has come to be recognized and appreciated as a uniquely American art form. I have sometimes read that in an era of "Gee you're swell!" romances, turgid melodramas and bubbly and unreal musicals, film noir is the only really watchable artifact from the period.

Anyway, the wickedly kinky femme fatale was played by Janis Carter (1913-1994), who was a G.I. Pin-Up girl. It's clear to see why. (Heyyy... is she wearing a bra in this shot? Pretty daring for the era. Another page - the camera sure liked her.) Born Janis Dremann, she went to New York armed with degrees in arts and music with the intent to star in opera. That didn't happen, and so she had parts in movies and television. She retired from show biz in 1956, and became active in the cultural scene in her community.

My poor Volkswagen continues to be a target for feeble drivers, one in early January, one yesterday. My wife was hit while pulling out of a parking space - the other driver (parked illegially in a handicapped spot, no insurance, no licence and lighting a cigarette while backing out) acknowledged being at fault. So we tap the uninsured motorist part of our insurance. Because my wife got his identity and address we don't pay any deductible. The damage is light: a bumper scrape which buffing will probably remove. But still, it's annoying.

The episode of Top Gear I watched last night had a comedian I have always liked, Rich Hall, as the "star in a reasonably priced car" segment. He was characteristically funny in his laconic and unsmiling way and made up song lyrics about the Rover 25. How to describe him? If Abe Lincoln did stand up comedy (there's a mild physical likeness), he'd be a bit like Rich Hall. Or Neil Young cracking jokes - that's kind of what Rich Hall is like. I suspect that the people who like guitarist Leo Kottke will like Hall - they both have a niche appeal. Fun fact: According to Matt Groening the character of Moe on the Simpsons is based on Rich Hall.

What's going on with Burbankia? I posted a link to an account of the games between crosstown rivals Burbank High School (Yea!) and John Burroughs High School (Boo!), 1949-2008. I have seen exactly two of these, the 1965 one and the 2008 one. My school lost both times. But then, the odds are in favor of a Burroughs win. From 1949 to 2008 Burbank won 21 games to Burroughs' 39.

Ah, Friday at last, and a warmer, non-snowy weekend to look forward to. We have nothing planned: no Scout activities, or hardwood installation or anything else. I don't know what we'll do with the time!

Have a great weekend...

4 Mar 2010

I saw two catalogs placed like this on my kitchen table. Nobody arranged or adjusted them; they were like this at random.

Also, I saw this on a bumper in the Metro station yesterday. Any effort of mine to make a snarky comment is tempered by the fact that I voted for Jimmy Carter in my first election (but certainly not in 1980).

High resolution photos of earth - What I think is cool, however, is the 1946 V-2 photo... never saw that one before.

I saw a wonderful film noir last night, "Convicted" (1950) with Glenn Ford (good) and Broderick Crawford (shown above - better). Along with Edward G. Robinson, Richard Widmark, Ida Lupino, Liz Scott and Humphrey Bogart, Crawford is one of my favorite actors. A beefy, balding prototypical 1950's guy with a gravelly voice and a suffer-no-fools-gladly demeanor - sort of like a malevolent Jackie Gleason, actually - Crawford could really act. In fact, he won the Best Actor Oscar in 1950 for "All The King's Men." Keep in mind that was awarded back when the Oscars really meant something, other than being awarded for the most politically correct movie or performance.

That's always the surprise in his films: that big lumbering slob could carry any role he was given with complete authenticity. His own description of himself is worth reading: "My trademarks are a hoarse, grating voice and the face of a retired pugilist: small narrowed eyes set in puffy features which look as though they might, years ago, have lost on points." Ha!

Crawford did some great noirs: "Il Bidone," "Human Desire," "The Mob," "Big House U.S.A.," "Scandal Sheet" and "Down Three Dark Streets" being six in addition to Convicted. And, of course, Baby Boomers like me remember him fondly in "Highway Patrol," on TV. In fact I used to have a metal Highway Patrol car as a kid. And a motorcycle I could ride. No telling how many of us kids said "10-4" in the Crawford style into our police microphones.

And the guy had a shaving mug collection. I mean, how cool is that?

A great Broderick Crawford site is here, if you're interested.

Anyway, he and Glenn Ford really shine in this great old prison film. I liked the scenes of the convicts gathering to shout - "yammer" - at the warden's office: "Yeahhh - yeahhh - yeahhh..." Lots of tough looking old dudes in this one - can a film with all those great looking, worn 1950's faces possibly be bad? No.

Curious thing, though... in my film noir encyclopedia entry for this film the review begins with, "Most prison films are not film noir." I beg to differ! Most of the classic period prison films (1940-1955) I've seen are certainly film noir. But that's one of the things that give this particular line of film criticism such interest: determining exactly what is and isn't film noir.

My son called this unusual watch to my attention. Amazing. This fellow will get all sorts of accolades from watchmakers for this. My guess is that people will be calling this the Bugatti Veyron of the watch world.

The tourbillon is a funny thing, however. Regarded as the highest evidence of mastery in the watchmaking art, it is questionable as to whether or not it actually does what it's supposed to do, namely, isolate the heartbeat mechanism from gravity so the watch runs more accurately. But maybe a two axis tourbillon works better!

Of course, greater accuracy can be gained by simply using a quartz movement. But that is clearly not the point here.

3 Mar 2010

I grew up there, but I had no idea Burbank had so many canyons. (I learned on Saturday thanks to a trip to the L.L. Bean store at Tyson's Corner, where my wife got a $69 jacket for $12.50.) I don't know where most of them are. Weird. But I bet I find out!

Narcotics are on my mind, namely because I recently watched two films about them: "Transsiberian" (2008), a decent neo-noir, and "To the Ends of the Earth" (1948), a semi film noir with Dick Powell. The difference in technique sixty years brings to film making is pretty drastic. In Transsiberian there's a torture scene showing a young woman getting radial knife cuts around her calves to get her to reveal information about where the stolen drug money is. Her leg looks like a bloody peppermint stick. It's pretty graphic; they wouldn't dream of showing such things in 1948. But back then they did something better - they'd suggest it.

For instance, one horror film scene that has always stuck in my mind is from the masterful Val Lewton's 1943 classic "The Leopard Man." From a review: "In one of his most disturbing set pieces, Lewton has a young Mexican girl tracked by an unseen "leopard" as she runs an errand for her angry mother. What makes the scene almost unbearable is that the errand is unnecessary, the girl is in real danger, and the mother — to punish the girl — refuses to let her into the house, even as she screams for help. Only when blood trickles under the door does the heartless mother realize what she has done." I assure you, once seen this is never forgotten!

I hear and read a common opinion among old-timers, who grew up with radio. They almost always say that radio was better than television because your imagination had to fill in the blanks with a non-visual medium; I can appreciate that. (This is the reason why book readers are almost always disappointed with the filmed version.) The more graphic television and movies become, the more the audience becomes passive information recipients rather than co-creators with the producers and directors.

Take a recent, highly-regarded crime thriller, "Se7en" (1995). (One IMDb reviewer gushed, "Probably the greatest murder story ever!" Does this fellow have much of a grounding in classic films, I wonder?) One is bludgeoned with graphic scenes of the victims of a serial killer. I submit, however, that in doing this the victims lose their humanity and become instead mere meat, and one is benumbed with the succession of horror scenes.

Call me old-fashioned, but I say far, far more affecting is the single tragic death that comes at the end of a well-directed film noir like "Chinatown." But perhaps film critic Joseph Stalin said it best: "One death is a tragedy - a million deaths a statistic."

Were I a filmmaker my artistic credo would be, "Less is more."

Finally, I am very saddened by the news that one of my premier hang-outs, Video Vault in Old Town Alexandria, is going out of business. Their press release:

"After 25 years, VIDEO VAULT is going to shutter its doors. What happened? Well, the story of packaged media is simple: It’s all about digits. Too many digital downloads, too many digits on that rent check. We always believed in the value of good advice and customer service. In tough economic times, low cost and convenience trump all that. Competition from other indie video stores didn’t kill us. Blockbuster didn’t kill us. On their own, a recession, the decline of packaged media and Netflix wouldn’t have killed us. All three at once were a triple whammy--that ultimately did us in. We are going to remain open for two months. We will continue renting and selling. But everything must go. Please come in and spend as much as your budget will allow. To paraphrase Humphrey Bogart in THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, “Jane and I need dough and plenty of it.” We want to thank everyone who’s supported us through the years. The Old Town community has given us some great memories. We have made friendships that will last a lifetime and we are thankful for that. I know many of you are saddened by this news but not as sad as we are."

I loved this place. The oddball video collection, the always informative chat with the owner, Jim McCabe, the cachet of being able to watch "El Santo Versus the Martians" anytime I wanted to check it out and, best of all, the appreciation that some of us were never cut out to talk to the terminally uninformed mopes that Blockbuster employs about filmic sludge like "Se7en." The staff at Video Vault knows who Bruno VeSota, Powell and Pressburger and Val Lewton were. A Netflix software-picked "recommendation" is just not the same thing!

Sigh. I think I once wrote that all the television shows I like get canceled quickly. This is an extension of that.

Brigham's Blog