Random Thoughts On The Movies

    A very good friend of mine owns a family bar and a family restaurant.  I haven't seen him in 20 years.  I would be welcomed like a long lost relative and also then treated as if I had been there yesterday, to this day.  Our acquaintance caused me, one time, to comment, that you can't make friends.  You have friends if you deserve them.  I digress but the memories are so pleasant it's hard not to comment.
    So, the movies.  At that place, at that time, Wednesday evening was Movie Night.  The owner of the local video store would bring over 3 new releases and we would watch one or all of them depending on the time we had. They all played but we had individual curfews.  How late we were allowed out.  That evening the first video was "The Terminator".  I don't know what your first impression was but the thing is riveting.  It was highly touted as futuristic/science fiction.  Time travel, cyborgs,  real Galaxy Magazine stuff.  About 2/3's of the way thru  I began to realize it was actually an old-fashioned monster movie, a lot like Frankenstein or Nosferatu. I kept that thought to myself and enjoyed the mayhem. "I'll be back."
    In that connection, someone asked what movie gave you nightmares as a kid.  Hell, I grew up in the 50's and 60's.  No movies; the evening news gave me nightmares. Forty years later the sequel to "The Terminator". depicted a nuclear explosion at a playground.  That scene gave this middle-aged man nightmares.
    Now, everyone is fascinated with zombies.  It's just stupid.  In the late 80's and 90's people loved Anne Rice and vampires. I never got that either but my kids (late teens, early 20's) loved it.  One day, I came in after work and they were watching "Near Dark".  In the course of maybe 15 minutes of conversation, I was exposed to 15 minutes of the movie I had dismissed as just more vampire nonsense.  I went on about my business but I noticed I kept thinking about the snippet I'd seen.  That always indicates to me I've seen something of artistic value that might be revisited.  I watched the movie the next day.  It scared the living bejesus outta me.  Lestat and all that gothic crap still seems like just crap to me. Sorry, Anne.  If I want chewing gum for my eyes I prefer Anne Perry.
    The thing about 'Near Dark" was it's just so naturalistic in its settings.  So contemporary. You can actually see yourself having a beer in some hole in the wall bar in the sticks and a bunch of people come in and murder everyone and you're helpless.  It still gives me the shivers.
    A few years later TV Guide published a list of the scariest horror films of all time.  "The Terminator"  and "Near Dark" made the list.   Everyone likes their thoughts confirmed.  "The Terminator" was a science fiction movie. "Near Dark"  was a vampire movie.  Nah, they are true horror movies and though my mind runs to "Bringing Up Baby" or 'The Front Page",  I recommend them both.
    Movies.  I just had occasion to rewatch "David Copperfield".  It made me think about the fact that as a vaudevillian, W C Fields always traveled with a trunk of books.  He spent an entire career imitating Mr Micawber.  Who better to play Micawber in the movie?  That made me think of what we think of as quintessential Bogart.  If you read Hammett,  you realize  Bogart was just taking stage direction right down to the smallest gestures.  It testifies to Bogart's power as an actor and his belief in Hammett's vision and it's testimony to Hammett's talent.  Interesting. Like everything else, the more you know the more interesting something is.
    I was thinking about authors and the movies made of their work.  You can always tell how much the movie makers loved the novel they're working on.  "Sometimes a Great Notion" by Ken Kesey is a good example of this.  I think it's one of the 10 best contemporary novels.  You can tell by watching that Fonda, Newman, Remick, et al just loved the book and wanted to be as true as possible to what they loved.  I watched "Nobody's Fool" years ago.  If you're an older guy it's just really great.  If you're from a small town, it's great.  It captures the rough and tumble and love of life-long relationships to a word.  To a touch.  Watching that movie got me to read Russo's novel.  I can't remember having done that before.  I normally read the novel and then make a point to see the movie.  Most people do, I expect.  I discovered why the people made the movie. The novel is great but the screenplay is so much kinder to the characters. It made me love the movie even more. I recommend both.  I liked Benton's touch so much better.  He polished the rough edges off of Russo and so doing brought out and enhanced the beauty of the grain.
    I just had occasion to rewatch the 2010 version of  "True Grit". That's been made twice from a novel.  John Wayne bought the film rights as soon as he read the book.  Eventually, the character of Rooster Cogburn earned the Duke his only Oscar for a specific performance.  I think the Cohen Brothers did a better job with the Charles Portis novel.  I can't ever fault the Duke but it's pretty obvious Jeff Bridges read the book pretty closely.
      In the spirit of random thoughts, I was thinking about "Big Jake".  I love John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara in the movies.  There is a scene in that movie where Wayne realizes O'Hara is in agreement with and instructing his more rigid nature.  He looks at her and says, " Is this the way you want it?" to which she replies, " These men should get exactly what they have asked for."  I actually get that.  My wife can look at me and instruct me to do the exact opposite of what anyone overhearing would think.  I just like that little moment.  Been there, done that.
     Sometimes the more you know, the dumber something is.  Here's something in the westerns, which I love, westerns that is.  A couple desperadoes will rob a bank and high-tail it out of town with a posse a couple hundred yards behind them.  Who saddled the horses that fast?  If you left a horse saddled all day it wouldn't be fit to ride. On top of that, how far are you going to ride a horse at full gallop? Not far. The old adage is: Run on four, walk on two.  it could never  happen that way.
    Another thing.  A man the size and weight of John Wayne would not have ridden a quarter horse. At least not far.  He's too big. If he wanted to ride all day he'd be on a plow horse.  Traditional cowboys were all little, wiry guys.  On top of that, about a third of them were black because it was one of the few jobs open to them.  Oral histories will tell you that but written history wasn't open to black folks back then.
     Here's another thing.  I really like the movie, " McClintock" but I was at a loss to see how it was made even then and it certainly couldn't be made now.  It's sometimes, violent misogyny throughout is kind of jarring.  It wasn't until I learned it was a conscious remake of "Taming of the Shrew " that I got it.  If the Bard can do it, so can the Duke.  I guess.
      Did you know that a silencer won't work on a revolver?  The side blast from the cylinder wouldn't and can't be suppressed.  Not only would it be just as noisy it would probably burn hell outta your hand if you tried it.  Well, it's just the movies but you'd think people would know that.  I don't know why I add that except it just annoys me.
    Speaking of things that annoy me. I watched "The Day Before Yesterday" a bit ago. It has a few deliberately mean, comic moments.  I'm sorry but the news reporter getting nailed with the billboard is funny. You would think it would be instructive but if recent hurricanes are any indication, apparently not.
    Now, this movie postulates global warming triggers a new ice-age. That's hilarious.  It just don't work that way.  In the process of this immediate freeze over the climatologist's kid gets trapped in the New York Public Library with a few friends.  Meantime, some sort of tidal wave they can't explain has brought a North Atlantic freighter to just outside the door.  They're inside burning books to try to stay warm. Outside is a freighter with probably several thousand tons of fuel oil equipped to handle North Atlantic conditions. It doesn't occur to them to not burn the books that would show them how to light the boilers and pretty much go wherever they needed.  Luke! Go to the ship! And by the way, call your Dad's cell phone.
    That's something that's changed a great deal in recent years.  I love film noir and mysteries but now I keep noticing that so much of some plots depend on the character being out of touch with his office or other characters. I find myself saying, "For God's sake, just call his cell!"  In that vein, you gotta wonder if Perry Mason's answering service wasn't clairvoyant.  He gets all his calls at just the right time and in obscure places.

    Star Wars was a shift in the way science fiction was made. There's been reams expended on how it changed the genre.  Here's what I noticed when I first saw it that set it apart.  Greasy fingerprints around the light switches. Ever before that the future had been very well maintained, groomed and dressed.  Uniforms were, well...uniform and freshly laundered and pressed. I think the future will actually be a cross between Star Wars and Spaceballs and parts of it will smell pretty bad.  The idea that men or women for that matter, will ever commonly wear clothing that zippers up the back is just stupid.
    As you can see I really enjoy the cinema.  After all, it's only a movie.

The Deep State

    That is obviously a pejorative catch-phrase but in a way, there is such a thing.  It's interesting that it's almost impossible to get a definitive number for Federal employees.  The numbers range from 2.7 million to 2.1 not counting the military or the Post Office.  The Federal government is second only to Walmart as an employer.  That's a little disturbing but not the point right now.  I couldn't find an overall percentage for the Federal workforce. (Probably just too lazy to deduce the figure.)  But employees of all governments nationwide are reported to be 17% of the overall workforce.  On a side note, the Federal Budget accounts for about 22% of the GDP.  That's understandable.
    So, what's the "Deep State"?  Each partisan administration appoints about 15 thousand upper and mid-upper level administrators outside of Civil Service.  There's no set figure for that either.  It's a process that takes about 2 years.  These people set the tone and overall philosophical direction of the government in harmony with the philosophy of the Chief Executive.  I don't think it's partisan here to point out the Trump Administration was unprepared for this detail of actually governing and that has slowed the process.  They were heavy on philosophy and light on the nuts and bolts.  They do seem to be coming up to speed.
    The government is a fantastically complex 4.5 trillion dollar a year enterprise.  Apart from any philosophy, it takes an extensive group of skilled, educated people to just keep the lights on and manage the paperwork.  They may or may not have certain philosophical ideas but they do have a detailed sense of what actually works and how to make it work in the real world.  They have to have detailed ethics and contact with and adherence to established practice.  They constitute the so-called, "Deep State".  In other countries and cultures, these people are known as apparatchiks.  The political appointees are known as "nomenclatura".  My point is, it's a common and necessary development.
    In our case, the problem, as seen by some, is when politics collides with that entrenched sense  of ethics and utility. In other words, " That's wrong and it won't work."  Idealogues don't like to hear that and we are seeing that conflict play out.  Hence the pejorative connotation.  Something that's making things worse right now is these career people know not just utilitarian things but what's legal and what isn't.
    It's not uncommon for political operatives of either party to discover the reason things that seem obvious to them have not been done in a particular way is because they are simply illegal.
    This administration has a lot of complete newcomers to government by design.  A good deal of the problems we are seeing have more to do with a lack of experience and information than inherent dishonesty.  It's always been true that a little knowledge or a lack of knowledge can lead to a lot of trouble.
    Politics aside,  I don't think we're seeing some deliberate "deep state" resistance. I think it's natural given the circumstances but those being resisted do have to blame it on something.

A Thousand Points of Light

    That was Bush 41's idea.  He was trying to sell his idea of a "kinder, gentler conservatism".   It was a tacit admission he thought most people found the bombast and bullshit directed at the poor and working classes by the Reagan people to be offensive and corrosive.  Who are we to disagree?  It was an admission Bush knew we had been moved from making war on poverty to damned near making war on the poor.  Bush acknowledged Reagan's "Voo-Doo" economics had turned the working class into the working poor. Somehow,  Reagan was able to sell devastating economic stagnation as some sort of success for genuinely bad ideas.  As it turned out, Bush 41 couldn't repeat that kind of "success".
    Before I go further, it's necessary to point out there were a lot of reasons for that stagnation that Reagan had no control over or responsibility for.  The problem with Reagan was that very few of his ideas or actions did anything but make it all worse.  Ignore the rhetoric and just look at the stats.  I know we have a generation who think Reagan was their kindly grandfather but statistics and results don't lie.  It's all there in bold print and it runs thru the fine print like  black crepe.
    Bush was trying to continue the "voo-doo" myth by building up the Angels of our better nature.  He was trying to encourage private entities to take up the slack in what the financially crippled government just was no longer willing to do.  All of that to protect the violence the Reagan people had done to the tax code.
    To be honest we did a pretty good job.  Working people of all intermediate classes had no tax cuts but they did step up charity.  We had no relief of our burden we just accepted additional burdens while the upper tax brackets were significantly reduced.  Burdens on the economically most productive shrank. Try as we might, conditions definitely deteriorated.
    Now we face an official assault on the least among us that doesn't seem to have precedent. It's both gross and subtle.  Even Reagan never attacked the hungry.  Even Reagan never tried to elicit cheers for the idea of the poor dying in the streets.  What sense does it make to attack a simple appeal to charity?  There are wheels within wheels even in Heaven just as there are wheels within wheels in Hell or republican party politics.
    Well, that's all pretty bleak but the response is encouraging.
    There was an attack on and a cut in federal funding for Meals on Wheels.  It's been privately funded far beyond what the feds were doing.
    There has been an attack on civil liberties across the board.  I just read contributions to the ACLU have increased five-fold.
    A powerless individual can't be attacked without some sort of Go Fund Me page providing more than enough for their defense.
    The children taken into custody at the border have fully funded defenses. Though why they need some sort of defense is a mystery to me.
    Look, my point is;  here we are, perfectly capable of providing for the things we see that need done. The things I've pointed out are the exceptional cases that have drawn attention. But what about the mundane?  Didn't we used to have a government where we all worked together to relieve the exceptional and the mundane?  Why do we pay ever more to have a government that doesn't extend help to all?  That's not the idea.  The government is not supposed to make enemies of some segment of society whether they be rich or totally deprived.
    This is America. We encourage the exceptional and support the less fortunate.  We've proved for two centuries that model works best.
    Get with the program!  We're all points of light. How brightly can you shine?

What Have You Done?

    I believe in open borders.  I believe our country has been made great by the concept of open borders.  I know I'm right.  The evidence is all around us from sea to shining sea.
    I'm an American.  I don't admit of fear, nor apprehension or hesitation.  The majority of us are that way.
    Our founding documents do not say, "All Americans."  They do say "All men."  Some sort of citizenship is not a precondition to all of our inalienable rights.  But if you will insist, I have a question for you.
    Exactly what the fuck have any of you ever done to earn your "citizenship" except to be dumb shit lucky enough to be born here?  What deserts have you crossed, what rivers have you forded holding your children?  What uniformed authorities have you confronted?  Don't bother telling me about your military service.  Lately, we've been deporting not just veterans but disabled veterans.  I can't imagine what genius came up with that but there it is.  If that doesn't tell you the entire idea of exclusion is bullshit there's just no point in talking to you.  You can stop reading now.  This is too advanced for your brand of citizenship.
    Lately, I've been reading about what people go thru to appear at our southern border with their children or just by themselves.  I highly recommend that reading.  These people are not murderers or drug dealers or gang members.  Nor are they any member of some class infesting us in some racist wet dream.  To say that from the greatest pulpit in the country is shameful on an order that can't be adequately described.  It certainly can't be adequately condemned.
    The truth is, just one of these individuals, families, mothers or children is worth 10 of those who would pervert our national promise and values.
    So, exactly, what have you ever done?

Obscurity and Absurdity

    This is an incredibly busy society and culture and a lot goes on that just isn't noticed much or it just wouldn't go on.  Sometimes, if you have your profitable little niche,  keeping a low profile might be a good idea.  If you're in the entertainment industry that might seem counter-intuitive.  You wouldn't think there could be such a thing as 'too much attention' but there is.  The idea of  'say whatever you want about me, just spell my name right' only goes so far.
    I think the "Duck Dynasty" guys are a good example.  Here they were, laboring on in relative obscurity.  The average person was pretty much indifferent to them.  In terms of the overall market, their record cable numbers were paltry but they did manage to generate hundreds of millions in ad revenues.  Then one of these guys emerged in the mainstream media and said some outrageous shit. They spelled his name right. The content of his remarks didn't matter. The attention did.  People associated his name and the name of the show with the network and started just skipping past the network, in total, in the endless surfing, in general because of that negative connotation.  Absurdity.
    It's thought the show was dropped like a hot potato for some bullshit, PC reason.  Nah, they saw the numbers and realized the objectionable bullshit was a poison pill that had generated too much of the wrong attention.  So much of what we are tempted to see as politics is just the simple operation of capital.  Ahem. Back to capitalism.
    Laura Ingraham is kind of having the same problem.  Until recently, it's safe to assume not many had the slightest idea who she is.  She's kind of a poor man's Ann Coulter.  If you have a rudimentary education her brand of fallacious, circular reasoning is, patently absurd.  The problem she's having is people are beginning to associate and identify those who advertise on her show with her less than attractive message.
    I'm beginning to think this is the dynamic at work in bi-annual elections.  Rather than motivating dissatisfaction the people in power are probably just attracting too much attention.  It's pretty easy to make the case that the average political message, no matter the source, doesn't stand up to much scrutiny.  It's the republican's bad luck their message is being increasingly identified with crying children and bankers lighting cigars with hundred dollar bills.  That could be a little hard to overcome.

Colin Kaepernick

    It's more complicated than you might think.  First off, the elevation of Kaepernick to starter status following Alex Smith's injury was a monumental coaching mistake.  Kaepernick was never more than a competent back-up.   Alex Smith has proven to be a winner ever since.  It was just part of a series of coaching errors that have plagued the 49ers in their free-fall to the cellar-dwelling status they now hold.  It happens all the time in professional sports.  The NFL is probably the least forgiving and most prone to mistake.  The seasons are brief and brutal.  There is very little margin for error.
    Here's the truth.  Kaepernick signed a new contract that paid him just less than 14 million up front.  Ever after, his performance wasn't just suspect.  He stank up the joint.  NFL player/personnel people notice that and avoid those types of players.  There was never a chance he would be signed by an elite team based on his performance alone.  If you add in his "social" baggage he rendered himself unemployable.  Now, his time away from the league probably means the reasonable and understandable end to his NFL career quite apart from any "social" consideration.  You would think he would know that. Perhaps he does know that.
    As a degenerate gambler and an avid sports fan that ends the sports aspect of this discussion.  It would be nice if the discussion stopped there but it hasn't and it's not going to.  It would be a good joke if I could say,  "Houston, we have a problem."  but Houston isn't going to sign him either.
    Now, it gets serious.  This guy managed to step into some powerful, complex and perhaps, dangerous currents in our society.  First, let's deal with misconceptions about NFL players.  Maybe the graduation rate isn't as good as it could be but the truth is, these are highly accomplished individuals with great wealth who have had more than a little exposure to a detailed, higher education.  If they speak up, people should and do listen.  That can be troubling.
    There is something going on with the police in this country.  Not all police but there is a kind of misled minority that's becoming more and more vocal.  I happen to think the widespread abuse of PEDs by law enforcement is a major problem.  I think it's a bigger problem in law enforcement than it is in sports and we're seeing that play out.  If you add in the constant undercurrent of racism you begin to see the extent of the problem and you can begin to understand what we're seeing.
    Then we add in the current appeal to the worst impulses of the least among us. That's not new.  We've always had these recurring waves of nativism and 'know nothing-ism' and we've always had those willing to motivate and exploit those waves.  The thing that I think is worrisome and perhaps dangerous is the convergence of these things and the unrealistic responses.
    Look, it's impossible to look at the cases of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown and others and not understand why reasonable people could conclude they were murdered.  You can certainly understand why black folks might want to point out Black Lives Matter.  They do.  How did the backlash become so vociferous?  How did these understandable conclusions become conflated with some sort of disloyalty?  How the hell did respect for the military get involved in this?  There are actually people who want to start a civil war over this.  Hell, there are people who think we should have a civil war over the Fed or Windows 10 but this looks a little more serious but it's going nowhere.
    It's 50 years since the era of 1968, 69, 70.  Major national figures just flat murdered.  A guy like Wallace polled 13% of the vote nationwide.  We had a record number of policemen murdered for no reason other than they were policemen. The Chicago police literally rioted on national television.   We had millions in the streets in direct opposition to and a  total disrespect for the military and the government in general.  People didn't kneel they stood up and burned the damned colored bits of cloth by the thousands.   As Dylan pointed out, it wasn't civil war.  Revolution was in the air.
    What happened?  Well, it was the largest economic enterprise in the world bound together by common goals, common education, common aspirations, common entertainments and occupations.  By dint of education and simple decency, we reformed, progressed and excelled.  Our international relations were repaired.  The malefactors trooped off to jail and for the most part, died in shame.  Not much happened nor will it.
    So what is wrong?  Hell, it's all wrong.  Kaepernick will be a hero and a villain for at least a decade but one thing he'll probably never be again is an NFL quarterback.
    I hope that clears it up for ya.  Enjoy the show.

The Search for Divinity

   I can tell you what I think.  I can not tell you what I believe. That would be against my religion.  Faith is an intensely personal thing only to be experienced and not shared except thru sincere good works.  We all fall short as examples to even ourselves.

    The question has been posed:  How did we get here?  Is there some purpose, rhyme or reason?  Are we alone in the universe as the Bible says?

    We seem to think not.  Most instruments to find other intelligent life are pointed away from Earth and haven't yielded much. Of course, the few instruments pointed toward earth in search of intelligent life haven't yielded much either.  When you consider the universe is expanding and is 13.77 billion years old it should be alive with radio signals if there were developing sentient, civilizations.  The argument that time limits our ability to receive signals presupposes the entire universe reached the ability to create radio waves at about the same time. That doesn't seem reasonable to me. However, it does support the idea of a "first cause".  It also brings up the idea that our notions on the age and size of the universe are limited by our powers of observation.

    It certainly could be a case of the old Chinese proverb that a fool can ask enough questions to confound a thousand wise men but the logic does seem to follow.  Why would we be the first in the vast universe to be able to create and receive radio waves?  I dunno.

    There is the idea mankind is a kind of pilot project by God to see if it's worthwhile or even possible to populate His creation.  That seems like a lot of responsibility to me. A responsibility placed on rather frail shoulders.  Why would an omnipotent being need a pilot project?  These are unanswerable questions that dissolve on the concept that faith is the belief in things unseen.

    OK, there's the faith-based arguments or at least some of them.  There are totally secular arguments.  They can be sort of summed up by the statement that life is one of the more amusing properties of carbon.  Sentient life is the operation of random chance in an infinite universe. To suppose we are alone is a conceit.  Maybe so.  Maybe Lorenzo Snow had it right.  "As man now is, God once was.  As God now is, man may be."  Maybe man doesn't just create the Godhead, maybe he is evolving into it.
    There is a theory that sentient life is no more than an unintended infestation of the operation of simple physics.  In the end, we are no more than pond scum or mold or rust.  That leaves us on our own to develop concepts of morality, right and wrong and so forth that only apply in our unintended universe.  A universe small and meaningless dwarfed by a "creation" we have no hope of understanding.
    I don't think that belittles our hopes, aspirations or values in the slightest.  Those things are ours to perfect and employ within limits we have no hope of understanding. They are ours to keep. I don't think it reduces divinity or simple decency one iota. They just become more our own to craft.   It only increases their importance that we must perfect them in relation to each other.
    Man IS the measure!

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