Thursday, December 26, 2019
DjinnfromtheBronxChapterThree: Richard Jewell: Thoughts on Truth, Artistic Licens...
DjinnfromtheBronxChapterThree: Richard Jewell: Thoughts on Truth, Artistic Licens...: Richard Jewell would have been an anonymous outlier, but for the fact that he was a security guard at Centennial Park in Atlanta in 1...
Richard Jewell: Thoughts on Truth, Artistic License, and the Brave New World of Accusation without Evidence
Richard Jewell would have been an anonymous outlier, but for the fact that he was a security guard at Centennial Park in Atlanta in 1996, discovered a back pack bomb and alerted the disbelieving police. Two people died, and many were injured, but the casualties would have been far worse had Jewell not insisted that there was something amiss and that people needed to be evacuated. He was a hero, at first. But nearly instantaneously he became the suspect. He was a plump, 33 year old man, who had returned home to live with his mother. He was obsessed with being a law enforcement officer, a profession he worshipped, and he wasn't very good at it, though he had studied the penal code assiduously. He was slow; he was plodding, the kind of person who is tormented by bullies in school and laughed at by the wise, self-righteous adult world.
There was a scene in the Clint Eastwood take on the events of the bombing, investigation and media coverage, where FBI agents are attempting to deceive Jewell into believing that their videoed questioning is to be for a training film. They hand him a form that acknowledged he had been read his rights, and waived them, telling him to sign as merely a piece of authenticity for the training film. Now, as a lawyer, in fact a prosecutor (of attorneys for administrative discipline) and consumer of legal television shows, fictional and documentary, I knew that police and other criminal authorities are allowed to use something called "strategic deception" in their interviewing. But this? I couldn't believe as I watched the scene that it could possibly be based on any semblance of fact.
But it was. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1997/07/29/fbi-conduct-constitutionally-suspect-in-jewell-case-says-justice-department/441fc00d-07ee-4657-a28c-06cd3c625d9f/
(There is also Marie Brenner's 1997 article in Vanity Fair which provides a great deal of information about the whole Jewell affair: https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/share/1fd2d7ae-10d8-474b-9bf1-d1558af697be
The conduct was denominated "constitutionally suspect" and a "major error in judgment". There was some semblance of discipline of certain of the investigators. I remember the events vaguely. I knew there was a bombing. I didn't remember that anyone had died, or that there had been injuries. I knew that Jewell was the primary focus for a while, and then he was not. I did not have any idea what had happened to him after 1996.
As the movie unfolded, though, I found myself impatient to read about the events to compare them to the Eastwood retelling. The only thing I had read about the film was how upset the media was about the movie's treatment of the reporter, Nancy Scruggs, now, like Mr. Jewell, deceased. There is no doubt that there was a leak from the FBI to Scruggs leading to the identification and subsequent media decimation of the life of Jewell, but the movie connects Scruggs to a composite character representing the FBI (played by Jon Hamm) and posits that there was a sexual quid pro quo. This bothered me. It still does. Mr. Eastwood interpolated the scene, I'm guessing, from descriptions of her, one or two of them apparently in writing. Here is one from the Atlanta Magazine in July 2003, after she died.
She was blonde and wore mini-skirts and gaudy stockings. She smoked. She drank. She cussed. She flaunted her sexuality. She dated Lewis Grizzard (my note: he was a writer, and columnist at the Atlanta Journal Constitution, who died in 1994). She dated an editor who allegedly beat her with a telephone. She dated cops, including one who was accused of stealing money from the pockets of the dead. 'Kathy was a bigger than life figure. . .she was over the top in many ways.'
You can read the rest of the article.
https://www.atlantamagazine.com/news-culture-articles/requiem-for-a-reporter-kathy-scruggs/
I guess the question is, based on his research, and since the actual source was never revealed (Scruggs and her co-writer were jailed for refusing to do so), was it unreasonable artistic license by Mr. Eastwood to suggest that the real life Scruggs slept with anyone to get the information? The media, as to this late reporter, say yes. I would agree with them, without reservation, if the media had any level of credibility regarding their conduct as to Mr. Jewell, who was figuratively roasted alive without any concern about his future, his reputation, or his legacy. I guess I agree, but with reservation. I wish Eastwood had not mixed a real life person with a fictional character and an uncorroborated conclusion as to how the real life person got the information in the first place. But here is my other question, isn't that done in many movies based on real life public characters? Are there some people in the public eye who are off limits? Or are all of them off limits (which will severely, perhaps appropriately, limit movie making about real life figures).
For the most part the movie seems to be on target with the facts of what happened to Richard Jewell.
He too is dead and I doubt his reputation ever recovered from a public "oops we made a mistake" destruction. I wouldn't be surprised if some people still think he did it.
But back to the credibility of the protesting media. Richard Jewell was 23 years ago. Where was their concern about truth and reputation when Judge Kavanaugh was being accused of criminal acts without a soupcon of actual evidence other than accusation. I seem to remember wall to wall coverage with attending salivation and shouts of Kavanaugh's unfitness. And now that the Judge somehow made it to the Supreme Court despite the best efforts of a political party doing the informational tango with the media, the matter has died. Phyllis Schafly is dead, and she is a hated conservative. But a popular television series repeated aspersions on her character that are still disputed today. There was no mention of the disputations for fairness. Then there is the movie "Bombshell". I haven't seen it yet, I admit. I will. It involves Roger Ailes of Fox News. Was there any license taken regarding this deceased person? My reading of some of the reviews indicates license was indeed taken. Is there outrage about it? Or is it all right because the woke folk don't like Fox News?
The media now objects to that of which it is the progenitor, even the first cause. Are they and their representatives to be spared that which they do not spare anyone else? The genie is out of the bottle, unless and until it can be stuffed back in with the rediscovery of truth, the objective kind, where accusation and malevolent gossip do not become facts. Do not do unto others what you wish they would not do unto you. But it's probably too late. And everybody has to watch his or her back and pray not to be a target.
Tuesday, December 3, 2019
Sometimes, Lord, It Really IS Too Much
I always have had sympathy for Judas. There is, to me, a gossamer thread of a boundary between what Peter did, and what Judas did when the world and its evils pressed upon them. I am guessing I am on somewhat heretical ground here, but I wonder how fair it is to say that Judas rejected Grace because he did what he did. Well, you could say that he did reject it, but was that rejection truly voluntary? It seems to me that it is possible, and we now know that with regard to suicide in general, such that it is no longer forbidden to bury suicides in holy ground any longer, that the burdens of this world can be so much that free will is impaired.
Judas' world was full of oppression by one human being against another. His people had been oppressed throughout its history. "How Long O Lord?" they would cry. The solution came but human beings are weak and He came in a nearly hidden way. And here we are, more than 2000 years beyond the act of salvation, and still those who seek belief struggle to see Him and are as then bombarded by a culture that would happily crucify Him again, some of them among the Shepherds of His Church.
Just as I was beginning this entry I read that the beatification of Fulton Sheen has been halted at the request of some US Bishops. The article notes emphatically that there is no indication, certainly there is no mention, of any impropriety of the sort that has come to light in the last 25 years, but by so noting, however innocently, there is no such indication, the spectre of impropriety is raised. Clearly, the request is for some purportedly significant reason. Since the days of Cardinal Spellman, it seems to me that there has been a deep antipathy toward Sheen, and the antipathy increases as his prophetic words about the American and International and Spiritual culture become more evident. This news only put a period on the existential angst I am feeling. Just as I finished this sentence, though I put a nice sign on our entry way door, which slams if someone does not hold it for a moment and close it gently, requesting that they take that moment, slammed to remind me of a world redeemed that has contempt for its own redemption or even its possibility.
The cultural dialogue, in articles, on Facebook, on television, on You Tube, on Google, anywhere that one tries to garner the pulse of the day, is plain ugly, though purveyed by those would would say they are kind and nice and tolerant--those who, I care about, have cared about, and have respected. It is no longer that one disagrees with you. It is that your opinion makes your very existence abhorrent.
I will not assert that it is on only one side of the political and moral divide merely because my own experience makes it seem so. I will assume, for the purposes of this lament, that it is on all sides.
Decent people can say horrible things with a pride that is joined by other decent people. Or perhaps I am wrong, perhaps what is said is not at all problematic. Perhaps the writer should be praised for forthrightness and truth? I leave it to the reader, and posterity to decide. But for me, it is a source of deep deep upset.
This week's straw that broke the camel's back for me. A friend of a friend on Facebook noted that he had been on a plane and saw a person wearing an American Workers cap. The writer thought, at first, that it was a Democrat, showing pride in unions. But then he saw a "Trump 2020" inscription in the back. He added this in an additional comment, ". . .it's one thing to know these ppl exist, it's another to share a close space and oxygen with them. Hopefully, what they have is not contagious."
I wrote a comment asking if the person knew how terrifying that comment was. I have not heard back as of this writing.
Such things discourage, they enrage, they inspire fear. I can understand how Judas thought decisive, earthly action was the only solution, that God was really not listening, not intervening. The light of Grace was there, but Judas did not see it. The light of Grace is here now, but it is very hard to see it, to embrace it. And to hang on.
I just read in some Advent book authored and promoted by Bishop Robert Barron, that faith is
"passion for the impossible". Well, then, I shall try to keep faith in the face of a world so distorted that I think persecution in the United States is not unlikely. But sometimes, Lord, it really is too much!
P.S. December 13, 2019. The Facebook commentator did respond. She stood by her comment and accused me of a denigration of her.
Wednesday, November 20, 2019
Marking Forty-Five Years
Those who know me, know that I am not much fond of this time of the year. I am sure I am not alone in that. There are just some of us who love the longer days between approximately March and November and, even here in California, lament the reduced time to bask in the shining sun.
In my particular case, though, this period from November 15 through to Thanksgiving, whenever it may fall, re-presents the day my father called me to say that my mother, who had been battling cancer for about fourteen months, was admitted into the hospital. Upon check in and assignment to her bed, she fell into a coma and died ten days later without having regained consciousness.
I wasn't a child, but I was fairly young--well, from the perspective of forty-five years later--I was quite young, a twenty year old college sophomore. She died the Monday of Thanksgiving week, and so, there seemed to be some haste about the planning of her disposition, with two days off for mortuary and cemetery employees on Thursday and Friday. I am not sure who pressed the haste, my father, or the funeral director. Either way, she died on Monday, the viewing was Tuesday and the Funeral and corresponding cortege to Gate of Heaven Cemetery was Wednesday. It happens that the days correspond this year as in 1974, Monday the 25th being the anniversary of her death, and Thursday the 28th being Thanksgiving.
There is a sort of haziness surrounding the time, the place, the people, and my own experience. I graduated from college. I went to law school. I moved across the country. I have resided in Los Angeles far longer than I did in New York, where my mother lived and died. Most of the friends I have made in my life never met my mother--there are a precious few otherwise. I am a woman in her mid-sixties. My mother never made it out of her forties. She had a marriage, and a child. I had neither. Have I missed her? That's a hard question to answer, and I worry that it makes me a cold person. She certainly was a presence during my formative years. Formidable. Commanding. Enigmatic. Secretive. Unyielding. Mercurial. Neither my father nor I understood her. I think part of the bond between my father and me, and one of the subjects of my years of therapy, was that she didn't seem to like either of us very much. She was also beautiful, and without a doubt, a perfect provider for her only child. All her efforts were devoted to my development, especially the educational. Though I had the customary baby boomer lapse as a teenager into young adulthood, she saw to my spiritual framework as well, insisting that I be raised Catholic. That gift gave me something sound and essential, especially when I was ready to come back to and explore my faith. The education and the spiritual foundations have both been saving graces.
Once diagnosed, though never told she was terminal, and still stunning to me, never told she actually had cancer, the presence became the softness I had craved when I was a child. She became open to my friends, and her own family, even a few she hadn't seen in a quarter of a century or more. In college, I dabbled in student radio at WFUV and she was probably my biggest fan aside from my dad. It would have been nice to have one of those Hallmark moments where the paradoxes of the past and the radical shifts of the present could have been discussed, where closure could have been achieved. My father never spoke of the softer woman in the 34 years he lived after her-- the one I had seen in the last fourteen months of her life. He recounted tale after tale of the stunning, but inflexible woman who married him just after World War Two, she a black Irish girl of 18 and he a world weary veteran several years older.
My father believed that she never really wanted to be married. I believed that she never really wanted a child. There was, there is, no way of knowing, of course. She never spoke of her inner life. What little I could ever discern of it was troubling--a kind of detached fantasy about being a hand model and a cast of friends, none of whom came with last names, who were movers and shakers in the fashion world. More disturbing, because of a lack of explanation, my father said that she actually would bring home cash from her putative modelling jobs.
One good thing about the passage of time, and growing into a senior's wisdom, is that my sense of my mother has softened. She was the product of her family life, the essence of which will always be a mystery. I suspect that she was the victim of some kind of of abuse in her own formative years such that she created a fantasy of what life ought to be, and however much husband or child tried to please her, they, and life itself always came up short. When she got sick, the walls came down. Whatever barriers that existed between her and me before that time, I am grateful for the fourteen months in which she allowed me to be her daughter, without expecting me to conform to some impossible standard I felt I could never meet.
I know quite a few ladies of her generation. I cannot imagine my mother at that stage of life. She will always be, to me, an innocent who died too young at age forty-eight. Her purgatory here done forty-five years ago, I pray that she is happy in heaven. I know she is.
In my particular case, though, this period from November 15 through to Thanksgiving, whenever it may fall, re-presents the day my father called me to say that my mother, who had been battling cancer for about fourteen months, was admitted into the hospital. Upon check in and assignment to her bed, she fell into a coma and died ten days later without having regained consciousness.
I wasn't a child, but I was fairly young--well, from the perspective of forty-five years later--I was quite young, a twenty year old college sophomore. She died the Monday of Thanksgiving week, and so, there seemed to be some haste about the planning of her disposition, with two days off for mortuary and cemetery employees on Thursday and Friday. I am not sure who pressed the haste, my father, or the funeral director. Either way, she died on Monday, the viewing was Tuesday and the Funeral and corresponding cortege to Gate of Heaven Cemetery was Wednesday. It happens that the days correspond this year as in 1974, Monday the 25th being the anniversary of her death, and Thursday the 28th being Thanksgiving.
There is a sort of haziness surrounding the time, the place, the people, and my own experience. I graduated from college. I went to law school. I moved across the country. I have resided in Los Angeles far longer than I did in New York, where my mother lived and died. Most of the friends I have made in my life never met my mother--there are a precious few otherwise. I am a woman in her mid-sixties. My mother never made it out of her forties. She had a marriage, and a child. I had neither. Have I missed her? That's a hard question to answer, and I worry that it makes me a cold person. She certainly was a presence during my formative years. Formidable. Commanding. Enigmatic. Secretive. Unyielding. Mercurial. Neither my father nor I understood her. I think part of the bond between my father and me, and one of the subjects of my years of therapy, was that she didn't seem to like either of us very much. She was also beautiful, and without a doubt, a perfect provider for her only child. All her efforts were devoted to my development, especially the educational. Though I had the customary baby boomer lapse as a teenager into young adulthood, she saw to my spiritual framework as well, insisting that I be raised Catholic. That gift gave me something sound and essential, especially when I was ready to come back to and explore my faith. The education and the spiritual foundations have both been saving graces.
Once diagnosed, though never told she was terminal, and still stunning to me, never told she actually had cancer, the presence became the softness I had craved when I was a child. She became open to my friends, and her own family, even a few she hadn't seen in a quarter of a century or more. In college, I dabbled in student radio at WFUV and she was probably my biggest fan aside from my dad. It would have been nice to have one of those Hallmark moments where the paradoxes of the past and the radical shifts of the present could have been discussed, where closure could have been achieved. My father never spoke of the softer woman in the 34 years he lived after her-- the one I had seen in the last fourteen months of her life. He recounted tale after tale of the stunning, but inflexible woman who married him just after World War Two, she a black Irish girl of 18 and he a world weary veteran several years older.
My father believed that she never really wanted to be married. I believed that she never really wanted a child. There was, there is, no way of knowing, of course. She never spoke of her inner life. What little I could ever discern of it was troubling--a kind of detached fantasy about being a hand model and a cast of friends, none of whom came with last names, who were movers and shakers in the fashion world. More disturbing, because of a lack of explanation, my father said that she actually would bring home cash from her putative modelling jobs.
One good thing about the passage of time, and growing into a senior's wisdom, is that my sense of my mother has softened. She was the product of her family life, the essence of which will always be a mystery. I suspect that she was the victim of some kind of of abuse in her own formative years such that she created a fantasy of what life ought to be, and however much husband or child tried to please her, they, and life itself always came up short. When she got sick, the walls came down. Whatever barriers that existed between her and me before that time, I am grateful for the fourteen months in which she allowed me to be her daughter, without expecting me to conform to some impossible standard I felt I could never meet.
I know quite a few ladies of her generation. I cannot imagine my mother at that stage of life. She will always be, to me, an innocent who died too young at age forty-eight. Her purgatory here done forty-five years ago, I pray that she is happy in heaven. I know she is.
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
Cardiac Mischief Managed
The term "mischief managed" is a reference to the Harry Potter series. Harry, of course, is a good wizard-in training whose claim to fame is that he survived an attack as a child by another evil wizard. One of the magical tools that fall into the hands of the hero wizard is something called the "Marauder's Map" which allows the holder to monitor the activity of others and to show the most secret spaces of the castle and school known as "Hogwarts". In order to clear the map, so that it once again appears clean or normal, Harry had to issue the words, "Mischief managed". As time has worn on, they have come to be the words by which one ends a conversation, conclude a project, or simply escape a situation, generally an unpleasant one.
In my case, the mischief that was managed was the time bomb my heart had become--the fuse being the left anterior descending artery--known with colloquial gloom as the "widow maker".
I have a history, both in genetics and in life style risk factors for heart disease. My father had his first heart attack at 51 in the early 1970s, a second one at 61, and a quadruple by pass in 1989. I seem to remember that, in the late 1980s, when I was in my 30s, I paid to have one of those still pretty new CT scans that would provide what is called a "calcium score"--a predictor of heart disease, specifically, artherosclerosis. I had a score of 95 percent. This meant that my calcification was 95 percent MORE than others of my age range. I don't remember if that is how I ended up with internists who were cardiac specialists (my earliest doctor in California was not), but fortunately, I did. I was raised on the tastiest, but least healthy foods, full of cholesterol, carbohydrate, fat, and sugar, as both my parents cooked. Me? I never was a cook and in these modern times I could grab prepared meals to my heart's (pardon the pun) content, and I never read a label as to what was contained therein. I have always struggled with my weight, but truthfully, I never was terribly careful about what I ate. From my young days I was full of anxiety. I chose a 30 year career as an attorney that overlaid the natural anxiety with daily stress. I ate and drank (the more sugary the better) to stem the anxiety. And controlled it all, not exactly ignoring reality, but giving it short shrift, with medication--which all apparently worked for a while. I mean, I got way past where my father had his first attack, and that I think created a false sense of safety, despite the history. I took yearly tests as required by my internist, and there seemed to be no significant change from prior years, or anything to suggest I couldn't just go along as I had been. I mean, even at this age, I can lift heavy boxes. I had even cleaned out several apartments (including my own) carrying out things others would find unwieldy. It was all good.
I was even more than moderately annoyed when, in May my internist cut me off my meds with message that I had to come in for my yearly routine visit. My doctor is well known in cardiac circles, and popular with patients, which means a long wait for an appointment with him, personally. But I would see his physician assistant first, have things checked on, and then see my internist/cardiologist on August 15. The May visit was uneventful. I expected that in August I would be having various routine tests, for the carotid, a stress test, probably, and, as last year, things would be about the same.
When I don't have to go far, I like to walk to my usual stores and restaurants. It is slightly uphill, near the Sunset Strip in Weho, from my place to say my favorite Trader Joes. It was mid-July. I wasn't out of breath as I walked, but I noticed the smallest bit of something on my sternum. Pressure? That's not what I would expect of pressure. Pinching? I couldn't quite put my finger on it. When I rested it stopped. And I went about my tasks. It didn't happen when I walked up my stairs to my place. It maybe happened once or twice after that. I should tell you that when I was very young, I was highly hypochondrical. I was a teenager when my dad had his pretty staggering heart attack and for a year afterward I was heart aware and very convinced that I was about to have the same thing, along with a variety of other imagined conditions. So, all these years later, harking back to that time, I wondered if it was in my head. But there hadn't been any psychological trigger. I knew I would be seeing my internist shortly, so I said to myself, "I'll mention it when I see him." The feeling didn't re-occur right before my appointment, and frankly, I was feeling great. I had already begun to adjust my diet, because I found out just how hefty I had become, and I actually had lost some weight.
Looking back, I wonder if I really might not have said anything to my doctor. I would like to think not, but you know, that's what happens. I have passed off symptoms of other things over the years, and well, look, I'm still here. But that was then, when I was in my 20s, or 30s, or even 40s. This is now, when statistical reality imposes itself.
I told him. I even put my finger into his upper arm to demonstrate just how minor the feeling had been. And then between August 15 and September 30, I had a variety of tests. The last one told me that my original feeling was not my imagination--that was the PET scan stress test whereby they inject tracers into the hearts arteries to test blood flow. I had the one where the technician induces heart activity via medication rather than by you having to walk a treadmill or bicycle. So I was lying still under the donut machine while my heart was racing and I felt the discomfort. But I could not just stop. I wasn't moving. It wasn't horrible. I was able to finish the test, but something got injected into the IV that made the discomfort disappear.
The result to here? I was getting 31 percent less oxygen than I should have been to my heart. Possibly three arteries were involved, with a 59-60 percent blockage in one or all, but the only way to know for sure was an angioplasty, which could then become a Percutaneous cardiac intervention (meaning the placing of a stent or two or three). Now when my dad had an angioplasty in the late 1980s (around the time I was getting that calcium score of my own), it was a pretty unpleasant experience. I remember they accessed his heart through the groin, and he was in the hospital (the same one I would have my procedure in all these years later) for several days. They had sandbags on his groin area to keep the pressure on the artery so that it would heal. He was miserable that whole time.
Technology makes me crazy in many ways, though I use it, but here, thank the Lord for it! Today, the angioplasty can be outpatient, and mine was to be. My internist wanted a particular surgeon to do the procedure (it is a procedure, not actually a surgery), and getting me on the schedule during two holidays (Yom Kippur and Columbus Day) was not easy, but on October 14 I presented myself as the last subject of the surgeon's ministrations that day.
I had garnered a lot of prayers from my parish community and elsewhere. I had sought the anointing of the sick, and I had made a rather quick and sloppy confession (not well thought out) on Saturday, so I was feeling amazingly calm. The procedure is considered routine these days, but when you sign those forms, you take nothing for granted particularly the risks that include death. And who knows what they might find? But still I felt peaceful in a way I rarely do. And I wasn't impatient as usually I am when they got behind schedule. It was after five in the afternoon when I was wheeled into the room. I was given fentanyl, which at first made me groggy-ish, but then wore off quickly it seemed to me, even before much had happened, and lidocaine to dull the incision at the right wrist where the catheter would enter and wend its way (with the skillful hands of the doctor) to the left side of my heart. I was lying flat so couldn't see the team (there were four), but I could see the massive flat screen TV to my left that presented my heart and arteries. To call it an "out of body" experience would be to be quite literal in this instance. A stent (aka a drug eluting stent) was placed in my Left Anterior Descending artery, though, happily none were required in the other potentially affected lines of oxygen to my heart. The stent gives off a medication that is geared to warding off a new blockage.
I spent three and a half hours in recovery and was released with a bandage around my wrist and instructions to treat it as "broken" for a day so as not to aggravate the artery and create a bleed.
It almost seems like it didn't happen. I went back to my life, with a new prescription for blood thinners to keep away the blood clots.
So, was all this necessary?
Thank God. Thank skillful hands. Mischief managed. Whew.
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Jesus in the Eucharist: As Personal a Savior as Can Possibly Be
Two experiences in confluence generate this entry. Since 1983 I have been a revert to my Catholic Faith. I participate in the Sacraments with what some might say is a reasonable frequency, some might say an insufficient frequency, and others, former Catholics, otherwise affiliated, not affiliated with anything at all, or purely secularly affiliated might say was a lunatic frequency.
What I have come to is that for all my participation within the activities of my faith I have kept God at an emotional, psychological, and spiritual distance, while He has been as close as close can be. I knew His Closeness to be the case, intellectually, always. But there was a chasm between intellectual acceptance and real assent. In this last, let's call it, fourth quarter of my life, I have been seeking to leap that chasm. Or build a bridge across it.
So, let me get to the two experiences.
I have been a "fan" of a particular book for some twenty four years, called "The Strangest Way" by then Father Robert Barron of Mundelein Seminary in Illinois. It is a succinct explication of three key principles of the Catholic faith. First, Christ is the Center. Second, we are all sinners. Third, our lives are not about us. To demonstrate these principles, Fr. Barron invokes some profound literature by authors like Flannery O'Connor and Evelyn Waugh. After I read the book, I re-investigated the life and work of Ms. O'Connor--for I had found her stories hard to stomach--and now I consider her not only a great writer, and thinker, but a model as a modern Catholic woman. I have followed this engaging priest's career and work until he became a Bishop, not in Illinois, but here in California. All through the years, he had continued to write and more than that, pursued his Word on Fire project to evangelize the public square, including, but not limited to the unaffiliated, the disillusioned and the reflexive, but rather passionless Catholics in a faith where The Passion is the crux. Within the last year, Bishop Barron launched an Institute, to complement his already Fulton Sheen-esq reach to the faithful and the yearning to be faithful.
I joined the Institute in August, and it is energizing stuff, and in addition to the heady intellectual bent (I frankly think much over my head), it has heart, energy and, I suppose, in accord with now Bishop Barron's view that the expression of theological beauty is a door to reason and truth.
To the extent I can talk to others outside my parish environs, which frankly is rare as the mere mention of words like "Jesus" or "faith" brings looks of pity, if not revulsion, that the only thing that keeps me in the Catholic faith is the Eucharist-- that round host which when, with the words of consecration of the priest, becomes Jesus Christ Himself. By the way, I was watching a documentary on Luther, which was quite good, but was from the perspective of my Protestant brethren. There was a key misconception--that somehow the priest was causing the change from bread to Body of Christ. Not even slightly. It is God who through the priest standing in persona Christi (in the person of Christ) causes the substantial change, the change of essence, not form. Forgive the digression.
Here's the thing. Though I have said I stay because of the Eucharist, I don't think that the intellectual agreement has necessarily passed to conviction, that every day I receive Communion, I am consuming and being consumed by Jesus Christ, Man and God. I think, in a way, I am afraid of that thought. It makes my heart drop as I write it. How could I not see?
But then yesterday, I went to a funeral for a young woman, Tanisha Prince, who was the Director of Nurses at the nursing home where a good friend of mine resides. She died in a tragic jet ski accident. The funeral was held at the Baptist Church which Tanisha had attended, where, as her pastor said, she had accepted Jesus as her personal savior. I have been to services of other Christian denominations, but I don't think I ever attended a Baptist service. The small Church was filled with a quirky combination of attendees, of course, the family and friends of Tanisha, but also the colleagues, friends and acquaintances from her work place, which happens to be a facility run by Carmelite nuns, approximately 10-20 of whom came to the service. It was glorious; it was life-affirming. The first song by a young man was not on the program, and I was in tears. It expressed the paradox of pain in loss and a persistent gratefulness to God. The pastor's sermon was powerful, in large part, a rousing invitation for us gathered together to consider what would be said of us after our deaths.
There was applause. There were "Amens!" I found myself wishing that there was something of this energy in the responses to the Word of the Lord in a Catholic Church instead of the often stupefying stares and silence at the gift of participation bestowed on us by Vatican II.
Did I have a personal relationship with Jesus? I seem to recall that being asked of us?
And then I realized in its absence at this wonderful ceremony what I have and so readily take for granted. There was no Eucharist.
I went, for a moment, from mere intellectual comprehension (and that not as solid as it ought to be, but then again much is a Mystery which our feeble human words cannot reach) to that conviction which has heretofore eluded me.
Yes, I have the ultimate personal relationship with my Lord and Savior. I can't get more personal than the Eucharist, Emmanuel, God With Us.
What I have come to is that for all my participation within the activities of my faith I have kept God at an emotional, psychological, and spiritual distance, while He has been as close as close can be. I knew His Closeness to be the case, intellectually, always. But there was a chasm between intellectual acceptance and real assent. In this last, let's call it, fourth quarter of my life, I have been seeking to leap that chasm. Or build a bridge across it.
So, let me get to the two experiences.
I have been a "fan" of a particular book for some twenty four years, called "The Strangest Way" by then Father Robert Barron of Mundelein Seminary in Illinois. It is a succinct explication of three key principles of the Catholic faith. First, Christ is the Center. Second, we are all sinners. Third, our lives are not about us. To demonstrate these principles, Fr. Barron invokes some profound literature by authors like Flannery O'Connor and Evelyn Waugh. After I read the book, I re-investigated the life and work of Ms. O'Connor--for I had found her stories hard to stomach--and now I consider her not only a great writer, and thinker, but a model as a modern Catholic woman. I have followed this engaging priest's career and work until he became a Bishop, not in Illinois, but here in California. All through the years, he had continued to write and more than that, pursued his Word on Fire project to evangelize the public square, including, but not limited to the unaffiliated, the disillusioned and the reflexive, but rather passionless Catholics in a faith where The Passion is the crux. Within the last year, Bishop Barron launched an Institute, to complement his already Fulton Sheen-esq reach to the faithful and the yearning to be faithful.
I joined the Institute in August, and it is energizing stuff, and in addition to the heady intellectual bent (I frankly think much over my head), it has heart, energy and, I suppose, in accord with now Bishop Barron's view that the expression of theological beauty is a door to reason and truth.
To the extent I can talk to others outside my parish environs, which frankly is rare as the mere mention of words like "Jesus" or "faith" brings looks of pity, if not revulsion, that the only thing that keeps me in the Catholic faith is the Eucharist-- that round host which when, with the words of consecration of the priest, becomes Jesus Christ Himself. By the way, I was watching a documentary on Luther, which was quite good, but was from the perspective of my Protestant brethren. There was a key misconception--that somehow the priest was causing the change from bread to Body of Christ. Not even slightly. It is God who through the priest standing in persona Christi (in the person of Christ) causes the substantial change, the change of essence, not form. Forgive the digression.
Here's the thing. Though I have said I stay because of the Eucharist, I don't think that the intellectual agreement has necessarily passed to conviction, that every day I receive Communion, I am consuming and being consumed by Jesus Christ, Man and God. I think, in a way, I am afraid of that thought. It makes my heart drop as I write it. How could I not see?
But then yesterday, I went to a funeral for a young woman, Tanisha Prince, who was the Director of Nurses at the nursing home where a good friend of mine resides. She died in a tragic jet ski accident. The funeral was held at the Baptist Church which Tanisha had attended, where, as her pastor said, she had accepted Jesus as her personal savior. I have been to services of other Christian denominations, but I don't think I ever attended a Baptist service. The small Church was filled with a quirky combination of attendees, of course, the family and friends of Tanisha, but also the colleagues, friends and acquaintances from her work place, which happens to be a facility run by Carmelite nuns, approximately 10-20 of whom came to the service. It was glorious; it was life-affirming. The first song by a young man was not on the program, and I was in tears. It expressed the paradox of pain in loss and a persistent gratefulness to God. The pastor's sermon was powerful, in large part, a rousing invitation for us gathered together to consider what would be said of us after our deaths.
There was applause. There were "Amens!" I found myself wishing that there was something of this energy in the responses to the Word of the Lord in a Catholic Church instead of the often stupefying stares and silence at the gift of participation bestowed on us by Vatican II.
Did I have a personal relationship with Jesus? I seem to recall that being asked of us?
And then I realized in its absence at this wonderful ceremony what I have and so readily take for granted. There was no Eucharist.
I went, for a moment, from mere intellectual comprehension (and that not as solid as it ought to be, but then again much is a Mystery which our feeble human words cannot reach) to that conviction which has heretofore eluded me.
Yes, I have the ultimate personal relationship with my Lord and Savior. I can't get more personal than the Eucharist, Emmanuel, God With Us.
Monday, September 9, 2019
Manilow's Memory Tour
I've got it all it seems
For all it means to me
But I sing of things I miss
And things that used to be
And I wonder every night
If you might just miss me too
And I sing for you
I sing…
The lyrics above are from the end of the song, "This One's For You". At his Hollywood Bowl two night performance, Barry Manilow invoked his late grandfather in introducing this song, the man who seems to have been the most encouraging of the music career (though he wanted only to be a song writer) of his grandchild.
I got all teary eyed at those last lyrics because they reminded me of all the time that has gone by since Barry Manilow first arrived on the scene, circa 1973, and that moment I was sitting in Section F Row 19 of the Hollywood Bowl on Saturday. I was ending Freshman Year College and about to be a sophomore. I had begun working at the student radio station WFUV in the Bronx, and so I was well aware of the myriad of pop and rock tunes. Frankly, back then I heard "Mandy" so much, I actually wasn't that crazy about it. But here I was 46 years later singing along with the multi-generational crowd that song and nearly all of the hits that had been among the threads of my life's tapestry when I was young and through the eventful years. When I first heard "Mandy" my mother was still alive, just before or just after her diagnosis with breast cancer, which would take her in November 1974 at age 48. I thought of her as I listened to Barry, the first of many losses to come, as life is wont to do, along with its revels.
When I was 22 ish, and just out of college, I was reconsidering law school in favor of the entertainment world. I spent about six or more months working with a college friend (so kind was he to help me get the job; hello Facebook friend!) who was the Music Director of 99X, WXLO-FM. One day I heard that Barry was in the studio with the now late Jay Thomas doing an interview. I surreptitiously peered at them through what I recall was a small window through the studio door. Well, who knows if that is right. I just remember a slight man, with a prominent proboscis, and a shag haircut. I know now he is 11 years older than me, but he looked so young, and fresh, and his career by then was already three or so years old. I had no idea yet of what mine would be, though as I have written in these pages before, I did conclude that radio at least was not something I would easily break into, and I returned to the route of law school, beginning in January 1977.
As Barry's star rose along with his income, I found my way, and was mostly fortunate. Yeah, I used to have lots of complaints, but when you grow up, you get perspective. You learn that we all, even Barry Manilow, face the inexorable movement of time. The face lifts that Mr. Manilow has had, often the subject of jest, is one manifestation of his response. But none of us, of a certain age, with or without facelifts, are unmarked.
Maybe that's part of what made the evening, for me, so lovely. In that 17,000 person venue, things felt really intimate in a way, like we were sharing an impromptu performance--despite the glitzy Las Vegas style staging--at home. The man behind us, clearly of our generation, was nearly apoplectic with joy. He must have yelled "Bar-RY" a million times. But next to me were a couple of twenty somethings. I wanted to say, but held my tongue, that I was glad to see their appreciation of a relic of my past.
And when I heard those lyrics in "This One's For You" I thought of the people that I miss, between 1973 and now, too many really, it hurts sometimes more than I can say.
I felt like Barry was singing for all of them.
Tuesday, August 27, 2019
Plus Size and Beautiful--Another Lie to Tell Ourselves
I don't know why the subject of weight is so on my mind that I need to blog about it. Well, I take that back. I sort of do know why. I recently found out that I am ten pounds more than I thought. I don't have a scale. I have for years refused to step on the doctor's office scale, the one that is just inside the door before you get taken to a room to wait for the internist to see you. But the other day, for some reason, I allowed it. I won't tell you the number. The old number was bad enough. Frankly, it's embarrassing.
I take THAT back, oh, not the fact that I was weighed and it was, as an old radio show character, Chester A. Riley, would say, "a revoltin' development", but the fact that my being weighed this past week was the reason I am writing about size.
Actually, the double speak word "Plus Size" has been roiling around my brain for some time. It has gotten triggered before, specifically when I have been shopping at Target. As one wheels through and past the women's clothes section, there is a mannequin wrapped in the latest cool garb. She is a plus size mannequin.
And try as I mightily have to appreciate her Rubenesque curvature, all I can muster in my mind is the word "fat". And then another word slips into consciousness, "disgusting". And then, "Oh, God, do I look like that when I am walking around?" And then hoping I still fit into the 14-16 that has been my usual for about 25 years, which is already considered plus.
I just read that a Nike version of a plus size lady in a work out outfit has generated "controversy".
I appreciate that there has been an extreme for years that demands of women to be no more than a size 10, and even that is considered too large. Some of us are just not built small. But as in all things human, why must we go to another extreme to compensate? American women are simply too fat. One article I read related to the Nike mannequin said that the average American woman of 5 foot 3 inches weighs something like 168 pounds. My friends. The word is fat. It is not healthy. It is not attractive. "Well, that's just you. And it's a prejudice." Well, look into your hearts, dear readers. How many of you, while professing publicly the beauty of the purely plump lady meeting you for dinner at a chic restaurant are thinking precisely the opposite? I have in mind a particular woman, wife to a well known handsome actor. Whenever I read one of those planted celebrity stories about the two of them out on the town, the writer gushes over the two of them, and how wonderful are their outfits and look. He looks wonderful in his outfit. She looks like a woman who has decided that she doesn't want to be attractive anymore when she was once very much so. And as to prejudice, then I am prejudiced against myself. My version of delusion is that though I am overweight, medically, they call it "obese", there isn't a lot of rolling fat. I am pretty darn solid. Well, except for the double chin, and there I can claim that it is merely a factor of being older, and even thin people have double chins.
"Zaftig". There's a word. One definition. "A nice rounded figure". Another slightly more troubling definition, "plump". And now, we have "plus size". I think I like "a nice rounded figure" better.
But the truth is that all of it is euphemism. And those women walking around with tight pants which emphasize bulge, and sleeveless shirts out of which sprout fleshy wings, are you really corpulent and proud?
Not everything we beings do ought to become a norm.
I eat too much. I eat the wrong things. I am fat. Now I have to be the one to change it. If I do, great, but if I don't, making it the new in thing isn't a good. Don't accommodate me; tell the truth. It might save a life.
I have been, since that weigh in, making an attempt, sometimes pitiful, at adjusting my diet. I have a long way to go. If I could weigh what I did in 1992, I will be delighted. A consummation devoutly to be wished.
I take THAT back, oh, not the fact that I was weighed and it was, as an old radio show character, Chester A. Riley, would say, "a revoltin' development", but the fact that my being weighed this past week was the reason I am writing about size.
Actually, the double speak word "Plus Size" has been roiling around my brain for some time. It has gotten triggered before, specifically when I have been shopping at Target. As one wheels through and past the women's clothes section, there is a mannequin wrapped in the latest cool garb. She is a plus size mannequin.
And try as I mightily have to appreciate her Rubenesque curvature, all I can muster in my mind is the word "fat". And then another word slips into consciousness, "disgusting". And then, "Oh, God, do I look like that when I am walking around?" And then hoping I still fit into the 14-16 that has been my usual for about 25 years, which is already considered plus.
I just read that a Nike version of a plus size lady in a work out outfit has generated "controversy".
I appreciate that there has been an extreme for years that demands of women to be no more than a size 10, and even that is considered too large. Some of us are just not built small. But as in all things human, why must we go to another extreme to compensate? American women are simply too fat. One article I read related to the Nike mannequin said that the average American woman of 5 foot 3 inches weighs something like 168 pounds. My friends. The word is fat. It is not healthy. It is not attractive. "Well, that's just you. And it's a prejudice." Well, look into your hearts, dear readers. How many of you, while professing publicly the beauty of the purely plump lady meeting you for dinner at a chic restaurant are thinking precisely the opposite? I have in mind a particular woman, wife to a well known handsome actor. Whenever I read one of those planted celebrity stories about the two of them out on the town, the writer gushes over the two of them, and how wonderful are their outfits and look. He looks wonderful in his outfit. She looks like a woman who has decided that she doesn't want to be attractive anymore when she was once very much so. And as to prejudice, then I am prejudiced against myself. My version of delusion is that though I am overweight, medically, they call it "obese", there isn't a lot of rolling fat. I am pretty darn solid. Well, except for the double chin, and there I can claim that it is merely a factor of being older, and even thin people have double chins.
"Zaftig". There's a word. One definition. "A nice rounded figure". Another slightly more troubling definition, "plump". And now, we have "plus size". I think I like "a nice rounded figure" better.
But the truth is that all of it is euphemism. And those women walking around with tight pants which emphasize bulge, and sleeveless shirts out of which sprout fleshy wings, are you really corpulent and proud?
Not everything we beings do ought to become a norm.
I eat too much. I eat the wrong things. I am fat. Now I have to be the one to change it. If I do, great, but if I don't, making it the new in thing isn't a good. Don't accommodate me; tell the truth. It might save a life.
I have been, since that weigh in, making an attempt, sometimes pitiful, at adjusting my diet. I have a long way to go. If I could weigh what I did in 1992, I will be delighted. A consummation devoutly to be wished.
Saturday, August 10, 2019
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood--A Satisfying Twist of Violent Justice
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!! IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE PLOT TWIST(S) DON'T READ ON.
I admit it. I was leery of seeing Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Quentin Tarantino = violence. I haven't seen any of his other films because of it. But I live in Hollywood--albeit a Hollywood Clark Gable probably never imagined, and I'm still entranced by its mysteries and former glamour, which, by the time the events of this movie unfold, is a lot less glamorous.
And, besides, as I drove in my own neighborhood about a year or so ago, I kept running into old buses with advertising for the old television show "Combat", and old cars, and 1960s era signage.
I mean, I could only admire a movie that using the remnants of Hollywood gone by--like the Musso and Frank Grill, open since 1919--recreated a time fifty years past. I wish I could say I wasn't around then, but I was, although I was on the other side of the country, vacationing with family in a little summer house in the Catskills, away from the tar beaches of the Bronx.
I was a teenager when the catatonic followers of the crazed and cunning Charlie Manson went to a mansion on El Cielo Drive in the Hills of the former Dream Factory and brutally killed an up and coming eight and a half months' pregnant actress, married to a famous director (Roman Polanski who was abroad at the time), and several of her companions. Unless you have a cast iron stomach, you really don't want to read the details of the demonic sacrifice of innocents achieved that day and the next, as another couple were also murdered by another of the Manson girls.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is set in months before and during the Manson murders. The fictitious fading actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio)lives next door to the soon to be accursed house. Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) is Dalton's stunt double, errand boy and ego booster. He spends a lot of time at Rick's house and in the Hollywood milieu, but he lives with his well trained loyal pit bull, in a tiny messy mobile home. Few people mess with Cliff, because he's a stunt man with an actual fighting skill, and the long standing rumor is that he killed his wife and got away with it. There is a rather funny scene on a boat, where the soon to be late wife is hen pecking (are we allowed to say that now a days?) Cliff. He is carrying around what looks to be a spear gun. Nothing untoward happens in the flashback, but the moment allows the audience to speculate along with Cliff's colleagues, "Did he or didn't he?" And any guy who can take on Bruce Lee (a controversial scene I understand as Lee is not portrayed in a charming light) and toss him into a classic car, is someone to be reckoned with, although Cliff gets fired by the head stunt man (Kurt Russell) for his accepting Lee's challenge.
Rick started his career in the 1950s, playing the hero of a Western, kind of like Steve McQueen's first television role, as a bounty hunter who always gets his man---and in Tarantino anti-hero world, gets him never alive, always dead. But now, his "star" as it were is sinking fast, and he's the guy who almost gets the role- again we have the shadow of McQueen (who has a brief appearance in the movie played by Damian Lewis)--but doesn't in "The Great Escape". We even get to see Rick in a scene in the actual movie--thanks to techno magic, as well as in a scene in an actual episode of "The FBI". In this fateful time, for Rick and for Sharon Tate and her friends, Rick has a new role, as a villain, again, in the short lived TV Series (yes, I watched it), called "Lancer". If James Stacy, Wayne Maunder, and Andrew Duggan, who starred in the series were alive, they might be overjoyed at their Hollywood style resurrection. Stacy's life was particularly tragic, and a brief "you know what's going to happen to him bit" reminds you of the motor cycle accident that, in 1973, took an arm and a leg--all this before he was accused of molestation. As I am writing, I am thinking of what another friend who saw the movie said about it. It's called "Once Upon a Time" for a reason. It's really all about the "What if's" in life.
Cliff, fading alongside his boss and buddy, is driving along when he comes upon a fresh young thing at a bus stop, looking for a hitch. The first time he doesn't pick her up; the second, he does, and she invites him to a sexual encounter (which recognizing statutory rape is not something he wishes to be accused of, he declines) as he drives her to the Spahn Movie Ranch, where she lives with a bunch of other pre-and just slightly post-pubescent girls and boys while the elderly owner sleeps and corrodes in a little room in the clap trap house. At first, Cliff is inspected by Tex Watson, and the other girls, and is deemed acceptable. This whole scene is really creepy and the key thought I had? Get out of there Cliff. But Cliff is concerned about George Spahn, whom he used to know in the good old days, and he pushes his way into the house to see him. Spahn--in the movie at least--played by the always brilliant Bruce Dern, is addled and disinterested in being saved. Cliff is visibly less welcome by the drug fueled girls and boys. When he gets to his car followed by the staring threatening pack, he finds his tire stuck with a knife. And he takes on the young man who did it, not Tex, who is out giving horse tours of the ranch to a pair of middle aged tourists, and gives him a pasting and makes him put on the spare. By the time Tex is called to the rescue of these clearly disturbed people, Cliff has taken off.
The threads are tied, when Rick, alone in the next door Cielo Drive house, hears a loud muffler on his property and finds two of the Manson followers, Tex and one of the girls (probably Atkins, but I'm not sure) trespassing. He chases the hippies away, his courage fueled by the too much alcohol he has ingested.
When we all go to El Coyote with Sharon and her friends, the place of their last meal, the tension has fully mounted. Rick and Cliff have never met Sharon, and Jay and Abigail. But their paths are inexorably merging. Tex and the girls come back to the area. They get to talking. Well, you know, I know, it is about to happen. Me? I got up out of my seat and stood near the door of the theatre, but still in view of the screen---kind of like a guy on first base, away from it, but close enough, but ready to go. I have read what happened to Sharon, and her nearly ready to be born baby. I don't intend to see it. I can't stand the inevitability.
Rick is in his house pool with headphones on. Cliff is in Rick's House with his dog, getting ready to feed him.
Tex and the girls are in the stopped car, spouting off down with rich clap trap, and revolutionary word salad. I didn't get what was about to happen.
When Tex and the girls burst in, it is not into the Tate-Polanski House. It is into Rick's. The interactions that Cliff and Rick, brief, ordinary in a way, but confrontational, that have altered the trajectory. Cliff is outnumbered but he has a secret weapon. The very very well trained pit bull.
The sequence is so fast, I can't give you the blow by blow, but while the dog has Tex by the crown jewels, Cliff is about to take on the girls. Lots of screaming ensues. I hadn't run for the door. I was expecting violence, but not this violence and it is compelling in its justice I realize, despite myself.
Cliff reduces one of the girls to chopped meat, and sends her crackling through the main door and window to the pool. She shrieks all the way in the exquisite pain she would have to be feeling. Rick, startled on his sound muffled pool float, learning his lines, jumps out of the water, and retrieves--a flame thrower he just happens to have lying around from another movie in which appeared--very much like "Inglorious Basterds" of Tarantino fame. He incinerates what is left of the pounded girl.
Police. Ambulances. Cliff is badly hurt, but he'll live. Jay Sebring walks down the Tate-Polanski driveway to find out about all the shouting. Rick gives him a brief, uninspired summary. Jay recognizes Rick. Sharon is a fan. Rick and Sharon exchange pleasantries through the gate voice box. Sharon invites Rick in for a drink.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Sharon Tate, her baby, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, Steven Parent, Leno and Rosemary LoBianco, lived and a few crazy bad guys (Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkle) got what was coming to them.
I am ashamed to say that it was an enormously satisfying alternative ending. Except Charles Manson, the coward who wasn't there for the mayhem in either version, was still out there.
I admit it. I was leery of seeing Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Quentin Tarantino = violence. I haven't seen any of his other films because of it. But I live in Hollywood--albeit a Hollywood Clark Gable probably never imagined, and I'm still entranced by its mysteries and former glamour, which, by the time the events of this movie unfold, is a lot less glamorous.
And, besides, as I drove in my own neighborhood about a year or so ago, I kept running into old buses with advertising for the old television show "Combat", and old cars, and 1960s era signage.
I mean, I could only admire a movie that using the remnants of Hollywood gone by--like the Musso and Frank Grill, open since 1919--recreated a time fifty years past. I wish I could say I wasn't around then, but I was, although I was on the other side of the country, vacationing with family in a little summer house in the Catskills, away from the tar beaches of the Bronx.
I was a teenager when the catatonic followers of the crazed and cunning Charlie Manson went to a mansion on El Cielo Drive in the Hills of the former Dream Factory and brutally killed an up and coming eight and a half months' pregnant actress, married to a famous director (Roman Polanski who was abroad at the time), and several of her companions. Unless you have a cast iron stomach, you really don't want to read the details of the demonic sacrifice of innocents achieved that day and the next, as another couple were also murdered by another of the Manson girls.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is set in months before and during the Manson murders. The fictitious fading actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio)lives next door to the soon to be accursed house. Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) is Dalton's stunt double, errand boy and ego booster. He spends a lot of time at Rick's house and in the Hollywood milieu, but he lives with his well trained loyal pit bull, in a tiny messy mobile home. Few people mess with Cliff, because he's a stunt man with an actual fighting skill, and the long standing rumor is that he killed his wife and got away with it. There is a rather funny scene on a boat, where the soon to be late wife is hen pecking (are we allowed to say that now a days?) Cliff. He is carrying around what looks to be a spear gun. Nothing untoward happens in the flashback, but the moment allows the audience to speculate along with Cliff's colleagues, "Did he or didn't he?" And any guy who can take on Bruce Lee (a controversial scene I understand as Lee is not portrayed in a charming light) and toss him into a classic car, is someone to be reckoned with, although Cliff gets fired by the head stunt man (Kurt Russell) for his accepting Lee's challenge.
Rick started his career in the 1950s, playing the hero of a Western, kind of like Steve McQueen's first television role, as a bounty hunter who always gets his man---and in Tarantino anti-hero world, gets him never alive, always dead. But now, his "star" as it were is sinking fast, and he's the guy who almost gets the role- again we have the shadow of McQueen (who has a brief appearance in the movie played by Damian Lewis)--but doesn't in "The Great Escape". We even get to see Rick in a scene in the actual movie--thanks to techno magic, as well as in a scene in an actual episode of "The FBI". In this fateful time, for Rick and for Sharon Tate and her friends, Rick has a new role, as a villain, again, in the short lived TV Series (yes, I watched it), called "Lancer". If James Stacy, Wayne Maunder, and Andrew Duggan, who starred in the series were alive, they might be overjoyed at their Hollywood style resurrection. Stacy's life was particularly tragic, and a brief "you know what's going to happen to him bit" reminds you of the motor cycle accident that, in 1973, took an arm and a leg--all this before he was accused of molestation. As I am writing, I am thinking of what another friend who saw the movie said about it. It's called "Once Upon a Time" for a reason. It's really all about the "What if's" in life.
Cliff, fading alongside his boss and buddy, is driving along when he comes upon a fresh young thing at a bus stop, looking for a hitch. The first time he doesn't pick her up; the second, he does, and she invites him to a sexual encounter (which recognizing statutory rape is not something he wishes to be accused of, he declines) as he drives her to the Spahn Movie Ranch, where she lives with a bunch of other pre-and just slightly post-pubescent girls and boys while the elderly owner sleeps and corrodes in a little room in the clap trap house. At first, Cliff is inspected by Tex Watson, and the other girls, and is deemed acceptable. This whole scene is really creepy and the key thought I had? Get out of there Cliff. But Cliff is concerned about George Spahn, whom he used to know in the good old days, and he pushes his way into the house to see him. Spahn--in the movie at least--played by the always brilliant Bruce Dern, is addled and disinterested in being saved. Cliff is visibly less welcome by the drug fueled girls and boys. When he gets to his car followed by the staring threatening pack, he finds his tire stuck with a knife. And he takes on the young man who did it, not Tex, who is out giving horse tours of the ranch to a pair of middle aged tourists, and gives him a pasting and makes him put on the spare. By the time Tex is called to the rescue of these clearly disturbed people, Cliff has taken off.
The threads are tied, when Rick, alone in the next door Cielo Drive house, hears a loud muffler on his property and finds two of the Manson followers, Tex and one of the girls (probably Atkins, but I'm not sure) trespassing. He chases the hippies away, his courage fueled by the too much alcohol he has ingested.
When we all go to El Coyote with Sharon and her friends, the place of their last meal, the tension has fully mounted. Rick and Cliff have never met Sharon, and Jay and Abigail. But their paths are inexorably merging. Tex and the girls come back to the area. They get to talking. Well, you know, I know, it is about to happen. Me? I got up out of my seat and stood near the door of the theatre, but still in view of the screen---kind of like a guy on first base, away from it, but close enough, but ready to go. I have read what happened to Sharon, and her nearly ready to be born baby. I don't intend to see it. I can't stand the inevitability.
Rick is in his house pool with headphones on. Cliff is in Rick's House with his dog, getting ready to feed him.
Tex and the girls are in the stopped car, spouting off down with rich clap trap, and revolutionary word salad. I didn't get what was about to happen.
When Tex and the girls burst in, it is not into the Tate-Polanski House. It is into Rick's. The interactions that Cliff and Rick, brief, ordinary in a way, but confrontational, that have altered the trajectory. Cliff is outnumbered but he has a secret weapon. The very very well trained pit bull.
The sequence is so fast, I can't give you the blow by blow, but while the dog has Tex by the crown jewels, Cliff is about to take on the girls. Lots of screaming ensues. I hadn't run for the door. I was expecting violence, but not this violence and it is compelling in its justice I realize, despite myself.
Cliff reduces one of the girls to chopped meat, and sends her crackling through the main door and window to the pool. She shrieks all the way in the exquisite pain she would have to be feeling. Rick, startled on his sound muffled pool float, learning his lines, jumps out of the water, and retrieves--a flame thrower he just happens to have lying around from another movie in which appeared--very much like "Inglorious Basterds" of Tarantino fame. He incinerates what is left of the pounded girl.
Police. Ambulances. Cliff is badly hurt, but he'll live. Jay Sebring walks down the Tate-Polanski driveway to find out about all the shouting. Rick gives him a brief, uninspired summary. Jay recognizes Rick. Sharon is a fan. Rick and Sharon exchange pleasantries through the gate voice box. Sharon invites Rick in for a drink.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Sharon Tate, her baby, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, Steven Parent, Leno and Rosemary LoBianco, lived and a few crazy bad guys (Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkle) got what was coming to them.
I am ashamed to say that it was an enormously satisfying alternative ending. Except Charles Manson, the coward who wasn't there for the mayhem in either version, was still out there.
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
"Why Straws?" and Other Thoughts
A few days ago I was at one of my favorite stalls in the still remaining portion of the Old Farmer's Market that is next to the Grove in Los Angeles getting a little something to eat. As I retrieved my order and my coca cola, I took a straw. I guess this area being in Los Angeles, and not in West Hollywood, where I live, plastic straws are still in a visible spot.
Anyway, the server and I got into a short discussion in terms of bans and other regulations said to be for our own good by our elected officials. She asked, "Why straws?" I said "I ask the same thing, but usually, quietly, because it is offensive to disagree to many these days, and if you do, such discussions usually resolve nothing or devolve with the offended's use of an ad hominem rather than a reasoned explanation. The server said, "Well, not me, I ask 'why straws?'"
As I went about the rest of my day, the "Why Straws?" question rumbled in my head. I consulted Google, which, despite its own likely delight in straw banning, would at least give me an inkling of the of the peculiar focus. There were several articles about a turtle that was injured by a straw that quite literally went up its nose and got lodged there. As an animal lover, I felt horrible about this, and while I was at it, about all the creatures that get tangled in human trash plastic and otherwise. But I didn't find a really satisfactory answer about straws, in particular. And if you are going to ban the straws on your cuppa of cola, you really need to ban the lid that is plastic, and while we are at it, the big cups that are plastic for the super super drinks. Maybe they will get to that, but I found myself mentally digressing and asking, "Why is there so much plastic in the ocean?" Well the reason is, in large, though not in total part, human littering. People throw stuff in the oceans, and lakes, and on the ground where water/rain/washing sends it into the sewers (the ones not blocked) and into the ocean and lakes.
As usual, it is human conduct, or in this case, misconduct, that is largely responsible for the stuff that hurts the creatures in the ocean. And the easy fix? Ban something. Don't deal with the miscreants who throw their garbage out car windows, or throw their last Styrofoam take out box on the ground, or spit on the ground as they cross the street, ban something so that people who do follow rules don't have the benefit of use.
The real fix would seem to be to prevent the items from getting into the ocean, by enforcing the laws already on the books about littering, and, in the case of one of the other reasons things get into the ocean (like blowing off trash trucks, or blowing out of the large containers in landfills) figuring a way to keep the stuff inside the disposal unit. But politicians like the symbolic solution, not the real one.
Back to straws for a second. Many of us, dare I say, most of us, bring our large cup drinks into our cars, where, when we were able to get straws without feeling like Jean Valjean, we could take a quick and easy sip as we sat at the red light. Without a straw, you have to negotiate an open container of stuff, unless you have one of those really cool sippy cups. And if you get rid of the lid, you have your favorite fizzy slopping around we you hit the many bumps on the road of your deteriorating infrastructure that your local politician doesn't get fixed because it is better if you just ride a bicycle or the train or bus. Accident anyone? You are not really supposed to drink or eat in your car anyway, so let's get rid of those cup holders!
And as to bans, they are not really always bans. They are often revenue raisers purportedly to take care of the oceans and the creatures in them affected by plastic, that goes into the back hole of whatever city hall corresponds with your progressively minded location, and is never heard from again. And the oceans and the creatures still are in critical need of address.
So, for example, I have read over and over that plastic grocery bags are banned, and that one should bring one's reusable bag (there in lies another interesting health hazard the long term consequences of were ignored apparently). That's great for the stores and the revenue as most of us forget those bags at home or in our cars and so need to get more. Or you can pay for a paper bag. Ten cents please.
But you know what? Every store still has plastic bags, thicker ones, to be sure, but they are some kind of plastic and I cannot imagine they are doing turtles any good. The only difference is that you pay ten cents for those too! I went on Google again to see what the pundits, think about that and I couldn't find a reference to plastic bags being sold for ten cents, or plastic bags still being sold.
I like plastic bags. I put used cat litter in them; wet cloths I am throwing away, and such. So I pay the ten cents for them. One thing is for sure, plastic bags have not been banned. I am fine with that, but it makes me question ever more the sense of accomplishment our political betters seem to have.
Apropos of straws in restaurants? You can't have them there either unless you ask. I guess no one is worried about the multitude of lips touching glass and I hope that the folks that wash dishes use really really hot water. You might have heard that things like the bubonic plague, measles, whooping cough and who knows what else, is back in Los Angeles and other big cities. That's progress.
Anyway, the server and I got into a short discussion in terms of bans and other regulations said to be for our own good by our elected officials. She asked, "Why straws?" I said "I ask the same thing, but usually, quietly, because it is offensive to disagree to many these days, and if you do, such discussions usually resolve nothing or devolve with the offended's use of an ad hominem rather than a reasoned explanation. The server said, "Well, not me, I ask 'why straws?'"
As I went about the rest of my day, the "Why Straws?" question rumbled in my head. I consulted Google, which, despite its own likely delight in straw banning, would at least give me an inkling of the of the peculiar focus. There were several articles about a turtle that was injured by a straw that quite literally went up its nose and got lodged there. As an animal lover, I felt horrible about this, and while I was at it, about all the creatures that get tangled in human trash plastic and otherwise. But I didn't find a really satisfactory answer about straws, in particular. And if you are going to ban the straws on your cuppa of cola, you really need to ban the lid that is plastic, and while we are at it, the big cups that are plastic for the super super drinks. Maybe they will get to that, but I found myself mentally digressing and asking, "Why is there so much plastic in the ocean?" Well the reason is, in large, though not in total part, human littering. People throw stuff in the oceans, and lakes, and on the ground where water/rain/washing sends it into the sewers (the ones not blocked) and into the ocean and lakes.
As usual, it is human conduct, or in this case, misconduct, that is largely responsible for the stuff that hurts the creatures in the ocean. And the easy fix? Ban something. Don't deal with the miscreants who throw their garbage out car windows, or throw their last Styrofoam take out box on the ground, or spit on the ground as they cross the street, ban something so that people who do follow rules don't have the benefit of use.
The real fix would seem to be to prevent the items from getting into the ocean, by enforcing the laws already on the books about littering, and, in the case of one of the other reasons things get into the ocean (like blowing off trash trucks, or blowing out of the large containers in landfills) figuring a way to keep the stuff inside the disposal unit. But politicians like the symbolic solution, not the real one.
Back to straws for a second. Many of us, dare I say, most of us, bring our large cup drinks into our cars, where, when we were able to get straws without feeling like Jean Valjean, we could take a quick and easy sip as we sat at the red light. Without a straw, you have to negotiate an open container of stuff, unless you have one of those really cool sippy cups. And if you get rid of the lid, you have your favorite fizzy slopping around we you hit the many bumps on the road of your deteriorating infrastructure that your local politician doesn't get fixed because it is better if you just ride a bicycle or the train or bus. Accident anyone? You are not really supposed to drink or eat in your car anyway, so let's get rid of those cup holders!
And as to bans, they are not really always bans. They are often revenue raisers purportedly to take care of the oceans and the creatures in them affected by plastic, that goes into the back hole of whatever city hall corresponds with your progressively minded location, and is never heard from again. And the oceans and the creatures still are in critical need of address.
So, for example, I have read over and over that plastic grocery bags are banned, and that one should bring one's reusable bag (there in lies another interesting health hazard the long term consequences of were ignored apparently). That's great for the stores and the revenue as most of us forget those bags at home or in our cars and so need to get more. Or you can pay for a paper bag. Ten cents please.
But you know what? Every store still has plastic bags, thicker ones, to be sure, but they are some kind of plastic and I cannot imagine they are doing turtles any good. The only difference is that you pay ten cents for those too! I went on Google again to see what the pundits, think about that and I couldn't find a reference to plastic bags being sold for ten cents, or plastic bags still being sold.
I like plastic bags. I put used cat litter in them; wet cloths I am throwing away, and such. So I pay the ten cents for them. One thing is for sure, plastic bags have not been banned. I am fine with that, but it makes me question ever more the sense of accomplishment our political betters seem to have.
Apropos of straws in restaurants? You can't have them there either unless you ask. I guess no one is worried about the multitude of lips touching glass and I hope that the folks that wash dishes use really really hot water. You might have heard that things like the bubonic plague, measles, whooping cough and who knows what else, is back in Los Angeles and other big cities. That's progress.
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