Tuesday, December 10, 2013

***Ancient dreams, dreamed-Last Chance To Glance- Magical Realism 101


Main street walked, a brand new just off the assembly line wild dream 1964 Mustang just passed by (dark green, complete with sally, sassy blonde-haired sally from down the street, with big breasts and no brains, according to shawlie grapevine lore, but still with that green devil of a mustang paid for by some smitten man out for her midnight romp of local manhood, or men-hood according to Frankie Larkin school boy corner boy lore, and he should know). Cursed no car night shade walked, no dough for car walked, no dough for nothing walked, poor Pa out of work again. Out of work as the ships that keep North Adamsville afloat are now being built in more exotic locales, foreign places like Taiwan and Malta, wherever that is, and so he, unskilled, last hired, first fired, and built for hills and hollows coalmine childhoods and no waterlogged ocean belts, has no dough to spare. Nada.

So I walked, and only dreamed of cars, not some big deal car like Sally’s Mustang or the “boss” ’57 Chevy of my dreams (nothing but a girl magnet car, and choices too, take a number, girls), and the stuff of hard corner boy chieftain Billy Bradley’s reality but just something to get around in, something to make the girls raise their heads when I pass by, and not keep them pavement-bound while I flannel-shirted in all climes, black chinos un-cuffed in all climes, Chuck Taylor sneakers in all weathers, and midnight faux- beatnik sunglasses at all hours pass them walking by (by my lonesome, except when Frankie decides he has had enough of main squeeze Joann, or corners).

And not something, some car not girl, too complicated, mechanically complicated, either so that I would have to spent my time and no dough down the street at Stewball Stu’s homegrown garage waiting on his lordship to fix some silly thing in about one second like tightening something loose with the flick of a wrench, endlessly talk about his latest conquests (plural is correct, girl conquests, of course, what else could Stu talk about, and for real, I know because they, the girls, and not dogs either, talk about it at school, and giggle, giggle that giggle that means more than tender smooches, jesus), smell his stinking whiskey breathe (rotgut Johnny Walker something but not top shelf but more live Adams River streaked water, and his oil stained, oil-stained everything (clothes, tee-shirt, kitchen table, Christ, how can a guy live like that. Some girl magnet, who knows how or why but they take numbers to ride the curve with Stu, but that is just me being jealous because a couple of times I got his “left-overs.” So thanks, Stu, for the favors.

But see Pa out of work means no telephone, and no dough to put in a telephone or keep it at the ready that is how close to the vest we have to play it when Pa gets his slip, not even a cheapjack two-party line that they, AT&T, practically give away. So this night I am not just walking, Main Street walking for the hell of it, but to rub a few dimes together and find the nearest public telephone to do my talking into. What it’s about, the talking, I will get to in a minute but let me tell you that this nearest phone is located right next to the Minute Motel. Come on, don’t you get it, that is not the real name of the place but do I have to draw you a picture? This is strictly for the “high society” crowd that does their business by the hour, or less. Day and night it seems, there are always cars pulling in and out. Not ‘57 Chevies, those and their Billy Bradley corner boy owners are down at Adamsville Beach or a t Squaw Rock down across from the far end of the beach watching the “submarine races” at midnight for free but more old guy cars. Buicks and Pontiacs. And seeing the traffic going and out of that joint, and why, what goes on, only makes my “job” for this evening that much harder.

See I have been walking this night for a while, a couple of hours, trying to get up enough courage to call this Diana, a girl classmate for a date. Diana, a greek goddess wholesale (although I don’t think she is greek or wholesale but I have her headed that way, that pedestal way), on this atlantic ocean strictly from hunger working class town means streets is who has me walking (and truth to tell kind of muttering to myself, she was that kind of girl). Naturally, Diana is not her real name just like that hotel, motel, no tell was not really called the Minute Motel, I don’t want any trouble okay, and I will tell you why as I get along with what I want to talk to her about. Don’t worry it won’t be long.

This Diana and I have been talking, hard and kind of deep talking in school about world issues, music, poets, crazed poets like mad monk Allen Ginsburg and not so crazed T.S. Eliot (we read Wasteland together in class, wow). Hard talking about the big break-out we know is coming, about how things are going to be totally different for us when our time comes with no Pa out of work and always no dough, or not enough, and we want to be part of it. (See, she told me in confidence, her Pa was on the chopping block down at the shipyards too so she knows about no dough, and sniffed dreams too.) So I take her seriously, and she, I think, takes me seriously although she never has had anything good to say about Frankie, Frankie Larkin, my corner boy, but that is because he tried to give her a tumble, I think, and she knew he was always ball and chain to Joann, or corners. That part isn’t important anyway. What is important is that I dream of her, no, I’d better say she disturbs my sleep and be closer to the truth.

And here is why. Diana, blonde, naturally blonde, Diana, fills out a cashmere-sweater nicely thank you, white tennis –shoed like every other girl in town but showing off some very nice, well-turned legs, thank you. So you can see where she might disturb my sleep because usually I go for girls who want to be part of the great breakout, just like me, but who well, since I am trying to keep my emotions in check before I make this call are only “cute,” at best. Although they too wear those white tennis shoes while reading their James Joyce or Albert Camus (ya, it’s that kind of crowd I run with over in Harvard Square when I have had my fill of North Adamsville squares, excepting Diana). See I am making this call, this midnight big time call to ask Diana to go on over to the Square with me, just as friends, see.

Right now as you can sense I bet I am only talking to stall, stall having to do this call, cold call really, because I don’t know that much about her personally and my intelligence network (Sunday night corner boy guys hanging around the boys’ lav on Monday morning speaking of conquests, and other lies) has run cold to the ground. All I really know about her is that she wants to break-out and that is good enough for me, and good enough to disturb my sleep lately until I play my hand out.

So I am seeking this public telephone, or rather courage-seeking, nickel and dime courage as it turns out; nickel and dime courage when due to no fault of my own (or Pa’s really when I thought about it) home provided no sanctuary for snuggle-eared delights. Maybe a date, maybe just a swirl at midnight drift, maybe a view of local lore submarine races, ah, to dream, no more than to dream, walking down friendly aisles, arm and arm along with myriad other arm and arm walkers on high school senior errands. Diana

I drop the dime in ring, ring, ring. Hi, Diana, hi spiel, and then, and then nothingness. No way, no way, damn intelligence no way, see she has a boyfriend, a college guy, probably all done up in plaid shirts, slacks, be serious, slack, and pennied loafers, and that is where her dream break-out was running. And then dead of night red-face right away, sorry, I didn’t know, alas, red-faced the next day, red faced until parted june freedom fly-out.

And red-faced even forty years later. Wow.

Main street walked, a brand new just off the assembly line wild dream 1964 Mustang just passed by (dark green, complete with sally, sassy blonde-haired sally from down the street, with big breasts and no brains, according to shawlie grapevine lore, but still with that green devil of a mustang paid for by some smitten man out for her midnight romp of local manhood, or men-hood according to Frankie Larkin school boy corner boy lore, and he should know). Cursed no car night shade walked, no dough for car walked, no dough for nothing walked, poor Pa out of work again. Out of work as the ships that keep North Adamsville afloat are now being built in more exotic locales, foreign places like Taiwan and Malta, wherever that is, and so he, unskilled, last hired, first fired, and built for hills and hollows coalmine childhoods and no waterlogged ocean belts, has no dough to spare. Nada.

So I walked, and only dreamed of cars, not some big deal car like Sally’s Mustang or the “boss” ’57 Chevy of my dreams (nothing but a girl magnet car, and choices too, take a number, girls), and the stuff of hard corner boy chieftain Billy Bradley’s reality but just something to get around in, something to make the girls raise their heads when I pass by, and not keep them pavement-bound while I flannel-shirted in all climes, black chinos un-cuffed in all climes, Chuck Taylor sneakers in all weathers, and midnight faux- beatnik sunglasses at all hours pass them walking by (by my lonesome, except when Frankie decides he has had enough of main squeeze Joann, or corners).

And not something, some car not girl, too complicated, mechanically complicated, either so that I would have to spent my time and no dough down the street at Stewball Stu’s homegrown garage waiting on his lordship to fix some silly thing in about one second like tightening something loose with the flick of a wrench, endlessly talk about his latest conquests (plural is correct, girl conquests, of course, what else could Stu talk about, and for real, I know because they, the girls, and not dogs either, talk about it at school, and giggle, giggle that giggle that means more than tender smooches, jesus), smell his stinking whiskey breathe (rotgut Johnny Walker something but not top shelf but more live Adams River streaked water, and his oil stained, oil-stained everything (clothes, tee-shirt, kitchen table, Christ, how can a guy live like that. Some girl magnet, who knows how or why but they take numbers to ride the curve with Stu, but that is just me being jealous because a couple of times I got his “left-overs.” So thanks, Stu, for the favors.

But see Pa out of work means no telephone, and no dough to put in a telephone or keep it at the ready that is how close to the vest we have to play it when Pa gets his slip, not even a cheapjack two-party line that they, AT&T, practically give away. So this night I am not just walking, Main Street walking for the hell of it, but to rub a few dimes together and find the nearest public telephone to do my talking into. What it’s about, the talking, I will get to in a minute but let me tell you that this nearest phone is located right next to the Minute Motel. Come on, don’t you get it, that is not the real name of the place but do I have to draw you a picture? This is strictly for the “high society” crowd that does their business by the hour, or less. Day and night it seems, there are always cars pulling in and out. Not ‘57 Chevies, those and their Billy Bradley corner boy owners are down at Adamsville Beach or a t Squaw Rock down across from the far end of the beach watching the “submarine races” at midnight for free but more old guy cars. Buicks and Pontiacs. And seeing the traffic going and out of that joint, and why, what goes on, only makes my “job” for this evening that much harder.

See I have been walking this night for a while, a couple of hours, trying to get up enough courage to call this Diana, a girl classmate for a date. Diana, a greek goddess wholesale (although I don’t think she is greek or wholesale but I have her headed that way, that pedestal way), on this atlantic ocean strictly from hunger working class town means streets is who has me walking (and truth to tell kind of muttering to myself, she was that kind of girl). Naturally, Diana is not her real name just like that hotel, motel, no tell was not really called the Minute Motel, I don’t want any trouble okay, and I will tell you why as I get along with what I want to talk to her about. Don’t worry it won’t be long.

This Diana and I have been talking, hard and kind of deep talking in school about world issues, music, poets, crazed poets like mad monk Allen Ginsburg and not so crazed T.S. Eliot (we read Wasteland together in class, wow). Hard talking about the big break-out we know is coming, about how things are going to be totally different for us when our time comes with no Pa out of work and always no dough, or not enough, and we want to be part of it. (See, she told me in confidence, her Pa was on the chopping block down at the shipyards too so she knows about no dough, and sniffed dreams too.) So I take her seriously, and she, I think, takes me seriously although she never has had anything good to say about Frankie, Frankie Larkin, my corner boy, but that is because he tried to give her a tumble, I think, and she knew he was always ball and chain to Joann, or corners. That part isn’t important anyway. What is important is that I dream of her, no, I’d better say she disturbs my sleep and be closer to the truth.

And here is why. Diana, blonde, naturally blonde, Diana, fills out a cashmere-sweater nicely thank you, white tennis –shoed like every other girl in town but showing off some very nice, well-turned legs, thank you. So you can see where she might disturb my sleep because usually I go for girls who want to be part of the great breakout, just like me, but who well, since I am trying to keep my emotions in check before I make this call are only “cute,” at best. Although they too wear those white tennis shoes while reading their James Joyce or Albert Camus (ya, it’s that kind of crowd I run with over in Harvard Square when I have had my fill of North Adamsville squares, excepting Diana). See I am making this call, this midnight big time call to ask Diana to go on over to the Square with me, just as friends, see.

Right now as you can sense I bet I am only talking to stall, stall having to do this call, cold call really, because I don’t know that much about her personally and my intelligence network (Sunday night corner boy guys hanging around the boys’ lav on Monday morning speaking of conquests, and other lies) has run cold to the ground. All I really know about her is that she wants to break-out and that is good enough for me, and good enough to disturb my sleep lately until I play my hand out.

So I am seeking this public telephone, or rather courage-seeking, nickel and dime courage as it turns out; nickel and dime courage when due to no fault of my own (or Pa’s really when I thought about it) home provided no sanctuary for snuggle-eared delights. Maybe a date, maybe just a swirl at midnight drift, maybe a view of local lore submarine races, ah, to dream, no more than to dream, walking down friendly aisles, arm and arm along with myriad other arm and arm walkers on high school senior errands. Diana

I drop the dime in ring, ring, ring. Hi, Diana, hi spiel, and then, and then nothingness. No way, no way, damn intelligence no way, see she has a boyfriend, a college guy, probably all done up in plaid shirts, slacks, be serious, slack, and pennied loafers, and that is where her dream break-out was running. And then dead of night red-face right away, sorry, I didn’t know, alas, red-faced the next day, red faced until parted june freedom fly-out.

And red-faced even forty years later. Wow.
***From The “The King Of Broadway"- The Stories Of Damon Runyon On Film- “Big Street”- A Review


Big Street, starring Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda, produced by Damon Runyon, RKO, 1942
Every working class neighborhood has produced (and produces), if those that I have lived in are indicative, its fair share of drifters, grifters, lamsters, short moneymen, wise guys and just plain big talkers. In classical Marxist speak this element is called the lumpenproletariat and in political terms is a drag on the class struggle and the feeding grounds for fueling reactionary and counter-revolutionary movements. In short, bad news.

I am willing to bet, and make that bet 6/5, that any interested reader looking at this review to get the 'skinny' on Damon Runyon's short stories of film, here “Big Street,” probably did not bargain for the above analysis. Fair enough. Okay, we will suspend disbelief about the true nature of these types for as long as it takes to get through this collection. Damon Runyon has taken that collection of drifters, grifters and con artists and their `dolls' and headquartered them, mainly in one place, New York's Broadway, the Great White Way of the 1920's and 1930's, and given us some very memorable stories about the sometimes hilarious, sometimes poignant as here, trials and tribulations of this motley crew.

Runyon's great art is to have an ear for the kind of dialogue that those on the hustle would produce if such a rogue's gallery of lumpen types as the Hot Horse Herbies, Skys, Sam the Gonolphs, Bookie Bobbies and the rest of the cock-eyed tribe ever had time to talk to each other. It is no secret that every little sub-culture has its own mores, language and sense of what passes for honor. Runyon takes this and exaggerates the effect but also in many cases puts an edge on it. “The Big Street” has a tragic- comedic starting off as a goof on cafĂ© society busboy Henry Fonda’s off-beat ‘crush” on torch singer Lucille Ball. And Ms. Ball is nothing but a, well, nothing but… The story line is driven by her gold-digger crazed desires to hit the Mayfair swells big time, her fall (literally) and her dreams of grandeur (small-sized) which our boy Henry, against his usual strong and sturdy type-casting, raises heaven and earth (and maybe the Holland Tunnel) to carry out. And in the end he cannot do more than see that her last wish is carried out.

Some commentators have argued that Runyon was just a cynic and had contempt for his characters (or for the real life characters that he based them on). Maybe, so. But if you want to look at a time and place that never really existed, except as caricature, then this is your stop. By the way- Buddy, can you spare a dime?

***When The Frame Won’t Fit- Won’t Fit Big Time- Jimmy Stewart’s “Call Northside 777- A Film Review


DVD Review

Call Northside 777, starring Jimmy Stewart, Lee J. Cobb, Richard Conte, directed by Henry Hathaway, 20th Century Fox, 1948.

Hey, I ‘m just like the next guy I don’t want to see a right gee step off, step off big time, on a murder one rap and maybe a quick jolt, although in this case he caught 99 years (99 years of hell by the way) but these crime noir film noir police procedurals leave me cold. No guy wronged by some wicked femme fatale or some wrong gee getting his just desserts for being a blight on the community leaves me decidedly chilled.

Worst is a story where the right gee wronged is championed by the fourth estate (yah, the press for the clueless) in order to see that some rough justice (and an increased circulation) is done in that aforementioned wicked old world. And then to have mild-mannered, intrepid, if off-handedly seen-it-all (at first anyway), Jimmy Stewart come out of left field to save the day, save the gee, save motherhood, save apple pies and save the American way of life, well, like I say give me a wrong gee or a wicked femme to chew on anything.

Here is the skinny on this one though for those who like this kind of crime noir plot line (and there must be plenty given the large number of film and television police procedurals far more sophisticated that this slightly soapy one). Frank nobody from nowhere 1932 high-wire “wet” Chicago steps into a frame, a frame set just for him, when a copper is killed in the “line of duty.” He gets that quick 99 and that is the end of it, right? No, Ma has to see that her boy, her innocent boy, is set free after she has scrubbed floor for eleven years to buy a little piece of mind. So she ponies up some dough for information about the murder, the press (in the person of Stewart and Editor Lee J. Cobb) takes an interest and bing bang bing (added no little by modern photo enhancement technology) an hour or so later Frank nobody from nowhere Chicago 1944 is free, free as a bird, And likes it, likes on the outside just fine. Yawn, I wonder what femme fatale Gilda is up to these days.
Sweated dust bowl nights, maybe dog day July or August, as my memory’s eye keeps returning to sweated scenes those months inevitably play their assigned sullen-producing role. After all who would, metabolism whacked out or not, temperature climes hard-wired genetically fixed or not, sweat (really perspire but we will not hang the writer on that, okay) in say January or early February in cold northern hemisphere artic winds drift. But let’s just call it sweated, hand the guy a towel or handkerchief and let him run himself silly this moonless dank night (something more was needed, something more of a handkerchief, than that old railroad man’s rusted red one found in some abandoned track siding on another sweated night, that time working his furrowed eyebrow to freedom roads, freedom roads before his time, before his generation’s on the road time, and certainly before magical mystery tour yellow brick road search for the great multi-hued America West nights time, and finding them, for a while).

The night part is easy, a little cooler time for our sweated boy, but the dust bowl part stands in need of explanation. Simple explanation really, for those who have been around a track. No, not tout track, bet your life on the next sure thing and happiness track, a running Olympic track and field track. A boyhood North Adamsville Hollis Field track which doubled as kickass practice football tract come fall. But year round a running track. Oh, I forgot, and this will tell you sometime about the damn place, five laps to a mile. Aficionados will laugh, so laugh knowing that in all the English –speaking world, at least in the 1961 English- speaking world, there are four laps to a mile. But there is more, more afterthought description. Said track was deeply rutted, summerfallwinterspring, from the lowest contract bidder surface materials scattered, generations scattered, on the pathway. And in all seasons, except the mucks, dry and dusty at the human step, and hence dust bowl. But enough of sweats, mop-moist red handkerchiefs, heavy breathe exhaustions, and dust. This was fun.

No, not the fun of innocent watching (and hoping) shaded windows for visions of irish maidens, ready with prepared notes (a spiel, okay) , frequently revised, and waiting for just that one moment that would bring forth the sweated exotic atlantic cheerleader glance nights but something else fun.

Something not endless walked about, something done, or with the promise of done, for something inside, and for the free spirit rant hammering my brain inside. At least at first after winning a couple of local races against slow (as it turned out) sullen corner boys full of mother’s corn beef, cold misbegotten cheapjack knickerbocker beer, cigarette smoke, unfiltered camels naturally, and larcenies, great and small. Strictly amateur stuff you see, done, done under coercion, truth, to keep a place in corner boy society, or else. Or else endless running, running the gauntlet, every time that corner came into view and some punk (inside I said punk, not for public disclosure even now, just in case, okay), some beef-fed, beer- bloated, cancerous- smoked felon in the making decided to impress some off-hand girl hanging off his off-hand arm (or better, sitting all dolled-up, cashmere sweater-wearing and worthy in his felon’s goods car, a ’57 Chevy maybe).

He had to laugh, laugh out loud (and it was okay since the closest houses surrounding the field, ah, the dust bowl, were not within earshot and he could have disclaimed the Gettysburg Address in high octave and no one would have heard) that his corner boy fears, and desires, had driven him to this fun. This sweated, dank, summer night fun. And to gather in a sense of worth out of it. It was laughable, really laughable. Especially (and here the night proved an ally too) the absurd notion that there would be some sense of worth in the moldy white tee- shirt, mildewy white shorts, who knows what diseased sneakers, Chuck Taylor sneakers, he was wearing. All kind of, well, as Billy Bradley, king hell king of the North Adamsville hard corner boy night and nobody, I mean nobody, disputed that title, used to say, kind of faggoty-looking, or girlish.

But there he was night after night once the weather got too hot to face the blistering hot and foot-burying sands down at daytime Adamsville Beach, daytime girls noticing his appearance too and probably thinking kind of, just like Billy king hell king thinking, yes, kind of faggoty, and knowing, marrow bone knowing, not girlish.

There he was pushing the night away and the red-faced Irish winds, harder, harder around the oval, watch tick in hand, looking, looking I guess for immortality, immortality even then.

Later, in bobby darin times or percy faith times, who knows, call it jack kennedy time if you like, but sometime before the third British invasion and before jack death, sitting, sitting high against the lion-guarded pyramid statute front door dream, common dreams, common hero dreams, all gone asunder, all gone asunder, on this curious fact, no wind, Irish or otherwise propelled him forward. No champion dusted field sweeper of all before him, maybe genetically hard-wired that way too although he always favored being poorly coached as excuse better. And hence he, dream champion on sweated July (or maybe August like I said before) dust bowl nights lived with the slows, the anaerobic slows, and was left with only desire, wet clothes and one minute good feels when he hit his practice strides. And many years later he felt that same good feeling whenever he logged more than one jogged mile. Who would have figured that one?
***Three’s Company- Noel Coward’s Design For Living- A Film Adaptation


DVD Review

Design For Living, starring Gary Cooper, Frederic March, Miriam Hopkins, from a play by Noel Coward, screenplay by Ben Hecht, 1933

Noel Coward, at least in the New York theater scene, is having something of another revival which prompted me to take a second, or maybe third look, at his work. No question he had a serious sense of plot and language when it came to writing “manner” plays addressing “high society (or what passed for high society in his day),” a look at that society from one who came to appreciate its frills and follies from a personal past of barely rubbing two nickels together. That is the case here with the film adaptation of the somewhat autobiographical sketch play, Design for Living (along some material help from his coming up from obscurity friends, the actors Lunt and Fontaine).

As with many adaptations from books or plays the relationship to the original source can be, well, attenuated as it is here, at least according to Mr. Coward, on the use of dialogue. But the general plot outline is similar- two guys, two artsy guys (one Gary Cooper who passes for the Midwestern All-American boy complete with ah shuck) and a world-weary gal get all balled up in a threesome, a love triangle, comedic or not, and for a while nobody could win. It all gets sorted out by the end but not before what passed for 1930s humor, including deadpan and slapstick humor, got a workout. This one is probably too tame for today’s audiences having seen every kind of social possibility on the screen by now but in the 1930s this was, and rightly so I think, regarded as sophisticated comedy, and certainly the subject matter raised eyebrows. Not the best Coward (or Cooper and March) but interesting.
***Playwright's Corner- Tennessee Williams’ Cat On A Hot Tin Roof


Play/DVD Reviews

Enough Mendacity To Sink A Ship

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The Theater of Tennessee Williams, Volume Three, New Directions Books, New York, 1955


The first couple of paragraphs here have been used as introduction to other plays written by Tennessee Williams and reviewed in this space. This review applies to both the stage play and the film versions with differences noted as part of the review

Perhaps, as is the case with this reviewer, if you have come to the works of the excellent American playwright Tennessee Williams through adaptations of his plays to commercially distributed films you too will have missed some of the more controversial and intriguing aspects of his plays that had placed him at that time along with Eugene O’Neill and Arthur Miller as America’s finest serious playwrights. Although some of the films have their own charms I want to address the written plays in this entry first (along with, when appropriate, commentary about Williams’ extensive and detailed directing instructions).

That said, there are certain limitations for a political commentator like this reviewer on the works of Williams. Although his plays, at least his best and most well-known ones, take place in the steamy South or its environs, there is virtually no acknowledgement of the race question that dominated Southern life during the period of the plays; and, for that matter was beginning to dominate national life. Thus, although it is possible to pay homage to his work on its artistic merits, I am very, very tentative about giving fulsome praise to that work on its political merits. With that proviso Williams nevertheless has created a very modern stage on which to address social questions at the personal level, like homosexuality, incest and the dysfunctional family that only began to get addressed widely well after his ground-breaking work hit the stage.

“Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” is a prime example of the contradiction that a radical commentator is placed in. The themes of duplicity, latent homosexuality, adultery and dysfunctional families topped off by more than enough mendacity to sink a ship are the stuff of social drama that NEED to be addressed as outcomes in the modern capitalist cultural sphere. However, in the end nothing really gets resolved truthfully here. Old 1950’s-style All-American boy Brick, the ‘great white hope’ of the family, may or may not sober up after the ‘lost’ of his dear friend and fellow football player, Skipper. Saucy and sexy wife Maggie (the cat) may or may not really get pregnant by Brick and save the family heritage for him, or die trying. The only certainty, despite all that above-mentioned mendacity, is that Big Daddy is going to die and that 28,000 acres of the finest land in the Delta is going to need new management, either by Brick, brother Goober (along with his scheming wife and their ‘lovely' brood of children) or some upstart. Off of these possible outcomes, however, I would not get too worked up about the final outcome.

In the movie version, done in the 1950’s as well, which starred the recently departed excellent actor Paul Newman as Brick and a fetching Elizabeth Taylor as Maggie the question of Brick’s possible homosexual relationship with Skipper is far more muted than in the play. The implicit question seems to concern Brick’s fading youth, his search for perfect meaning to life in Mississippi and that one’s existential crisis can be eliminated by reliance on the bottle. The relationship between the dying Big Daddy and his ever suffering wife, Big Mama, is less dastardly than in the play as well. The scheming Goober and wife and family and those ‘lovely’ children, however, run true to form. My sense of the movie, unlike the deeper issues of the play, is that a few therapy sessions would put old Brick back on the right track. The play was far less hopeful in that regard.
***Adam Smith Or Karl Marx?-Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story- A Review


DVD Review

Capitalism: A Love Story, directed by Michael Moore, 2009

No question the premier documentary director, Michael Moore, knows how to convincingly and artfully put together a collage propaganda (in the traditional sense) film. And he does not fail here. He shows the raw face of capitalism as it has ravaged his America, particularly over the past several decades when the working people of this country have taken it on the chin, repeatedly taken it on the chin, at the hands of today’s robber barons and economic royalists (okay, okay the 1%). His interviews of those who have been beaten down by home and farm (don’t forget those in the recent past) foreclosures at the hands of the merciless banks, the conscious “race to the bottom “ by American corporations to drive the wage rate down by outsourcing and off-shore operations, and the perfidious nature of the recent crop of politicians from selectmen to president most more than ready to do the bidding of the ruling class (okay, 1%) all are graphically and powerfully portrayed in this documentary.

Still and all as powerful as all of this work is as propaganda for an anti-capitalist (and maybe even a pro-socialist) perspective I would, and gladly, take the expose more seriously if Brother Moore didn’t always find time to be front and center at every Democratic National Convention he can find, including last year's edition. One should at least be able to take one’s own conclusions seriously before asking others to do so.
***Adam Smith Or Karl Marx?-Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story- A Review


DVD Review

Capitalism: A Love Story, directed by Michael Moore, 2009

No question the premier documentary director, Michael Moore, knows how to convincingly and artfully put together a collage propaganda (in the traditional sense) film. And he does not fail here. He shows the raw face of capitalism as it has ravaged his America, particularly over the past several decades when the working people of this country have taken it on the chin, repeatedly taken it on the chin, at the hands of today’s robber barons and economic royalists (okay, okay the 1%). His interviews of those who have been beaten down by home and farm (don’t forget those in the recent past) foreclosures at the hands of the merciless banks, the conscious “race to the bottom “ by American corporations to drive the wage rate down by outsourcing and off-shore operations, and the perfidious nature of the recent crop of politicians from selectmen to president most more than ready to do the bidding of the ruling class (okay, 1%) all are graphically and powerfully portrayed in this documentary.

Still and all as powerful as all of this work is as propaganda for an anti-capitalist (and maybe even a pro-socialist) perspective I would, and gladly, take the expose more seriously if Brother Moore didn’t always find time to be front and center at every Democratic National Convention he can find, including last year's edition. One should at least be able to take one’s own conclusions seriously before asking others to do so.

Wednesday, December 11th
1pm @ Point Lounge, UMass-Boston 
Campus Center, 3rd Floor
 
We made history this year. In a historic moment, working people in Seattle have elected the first open socialist to a major city council in decades, Socialist Alternative member Kshama Sawant. 
Kshama's victory has national and international implications and shows the wide opening available for the left and socialists in particular to make a huge political impact. This victory contains important lessons for struggles in the coming year like the Fight for 15, which is a national campaign to raise the minimum wage to $15/hr and was a key demand of Kshama's campaign.
Please join UMass Boston Socialist Alternative at 1 pm on Wednesday, December 11th for a discussion of the historic victory and what lies ahead.

***The Life And Times Of Michael Philip Marlin-Lost In The Rain 


As readers know Tyrone Fallon, the son of the late famous Southern California private operative, Michael Philip Marlin (Tyrone used his mother’s maiden name for obvious reasons), and private eye in his own right told my old friend Peter Paul Markin’s friend Joshua Lawrence Breslin some stories that his illustrious father told him. Here’s one such story.  

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman-with kudos to Raymond Chandler

Michael Philip Marlin often said that he was not an introspective man, a man who thought long and hard before or after he did something. He said that in his business, the trouble business, the hard-nosed private eye racket, it was best not to mull things over, to brood over things. That stuff was for the uptown intellectuals, the literati, or the Hollywood swells that got paid good money to mull and brood. He emphasized that it was bad business to do that stuff especially when things went south on you. Went south on you from your own doing, or your client’s not levelling with you, or maybe you got waylaid by some dame’s hard luck story and went over the edge that way. So he didn’t sulk and moan as a general rule, got drunk or high or went out with some on the loose dame and forgot about it. Then the next case came along and all that stuff was old hat and hardly remembered anyway. Except this one case, the one that he told me about where for once in his professional life he actually caused more harm than good, and had gotten a couple of guys dead, very dead because he overplayed his hand. That one caused him some weary, sleep-less nights for a while.

Marlin had been having a string of bad luck back in 1940, maybe early 1941 before the Nips blasted us at Pearl Harbor and made luck, good or bad, take a back seat to killing every one of those bastards that we could get our hands on.  His lady love of the time, Fiona Florin, had played the percentages and forsaken him and his single ways for another speedier guy, Benny Sills. His cherished 1932 Packard was giving out on him and he had no dough, no serious dough coming in to fix the thing. He shortly would have to start pounding the pavements of sunny Los Angeles if some business did not show up at his doorstep. Even the doorstep was in doubt since he was three months behind in his office rent and his room rent. He did not figure to do much business if he was living out of some cardboard box down at the Southern Pacific Railroad jungle, or sharing space in some woe-begotten ravine.     

Then L.A. Detective Lieutenant Bunky Pitts called him up and said he had a job for him, maybe. He had known Bunky back in the days when they both worked out of the D. A.’s office and Bunky after that experience would some work, some non-police work his way. The maybe part came when Bunky told him who his client might be- Duke Ravel. Yes, Duke Ravel who was known far and wide as Buster Bogan’s right- hand man. Brogan the boss of bosses of all the West Coast action, booze, broads, drugs, gambling you name it he had his fingers in it. And Duke made sure those fingers stuck, struck gold too. Marlin could see why Bunky would not touch the thing, no public cop, even those on the Brogan-Ravel take couldn’t afford to be seen catering to Duke’s request. Marlin almost told Bunky to forget it, no dice, nada, since he usually gave a wide berth in the gangsters and mobsters around town when he thought for just a minute about his pressing financial needs. So he told Bunky to send Duke over to at least talk it over.

A couple of days later Duke showed up at Marlin’s doorstep wearing a high-priced suit and more gold on his fingers that he had ever seen on a man, or most women for that matter. Duke lit a cigarette, Marlin offered some low-shelf Scotch which Duke accepted with a grimace and he proceeded to tell his story, his reasons for needing, what did he call Marlin, oh yah, “a cheapie gumshoe.”  Naturally it involved a woman, a wild young woman whom he had met at a Hollywood party. Now this woman, Shana Dove (Marlin assumed that was her Hollywood name), had been around the block a few times since she landed in L.A. from some Podunk town in the Midwest, Muncie, Indiana Duke thought. But as will happen to guys, guys from those lowdown railroad jungle denizens to the hard- shell Dukes of the world, will get skirt-crazy and do things they ordinarily would not dream of doing.

Duke wanted to marry this Shana but she had a problem, a recent problem that needed investigation before he took action, if any. She had been a party girl, a Hollywood party girl, paid to do, well, do anything that was needed at a party, a stag party let’s say. Some guy, some smooth operator, a guy named Sam Shepard, some kind of free-lance photographer had taken some photos of her while she was in party mode and had sent a couple of samples to Duke once he knew the score. Duke had paid him off once already to the tune of five thousand dollars. He, mistakenly, had assumed he had stopped the problem. A few days before this meeting in Marlin’s office he had received another lot of photos and another request for dough. He fumed but after he settled down he called up his friend Bunky Pitts to see if he knew anybody who on the QT could get a line on this guy, and put an end to the problem before he murdered the bastard. Marlin thought to himself that Duke had it bad, bad as a man can have it for a women, even if she was some tramp, if he hadn’t already wasted this Shepard guy and left him in some back alley. The biggest thing that impressed Marlin though was this case seemed pretty straight forward despite his distaste for mixing and matching with lowlife. That and the two Gs Duke left on his desk.   

Strangely the case actually did work out to be pretty easy, until that last day, the day when everything blew up in Marlin’s face.  He had persuaded Duke at that first meeting to let him talk to this Shana to see where she stood, see what she knew about this Sam Shepard and his roving camera eye. So he met her one sunny afternoon over at her apartment at the Longview Arms in Bunker Hill (when that section of town was a step-up for those hordes who had descended on Hollywood to make that big silver screen and had some measure of success, maybe as extras, behind the camera, or, um, a starlet) where he learned later, later when it was too late that Duke was footing the bill. Shana met him at the door and she certainly had some looks, blonde, naturally, as was the style for everybody aspiring to any hope to be in front of the camera, slender, long legs and well- turned too, blue eyes, eyes that he would get back to in a minute. Flash looks though from Marlin’s experience, working class Midwest minute glamor and then fast fade after children, life’s grind or its sorrows for those not smart enough to get away from the low-life scene of bars, salesmen, and cheap perfume. She welcomed him in, asked him to take seat, offered him cigarettes, Scotch, or some snow (snow before it became illegal and when you could purchase it at your local drugstore just like aspirin). He cut to the chase quickly, wanted to know her background, what she knew about Shepard and what he had on her, and why.              

Shana gave Marlin the litany, the song he had heard many, too many times before. She, a small town girl, had few prospects except getting married to some farmer’s son, having kids and fading gone. But she was restless like a lot of people who went through the Great Depression and couldn’t, wouldn’t stand still just in case something turned up somewhere and they could get out from under. She had seen a movie (more than one but as the song went one was enough) with some beauty who couldn’t hold a candle to her looks, decided that she would be the next thing, left that Podunk town on the fastest Greyhound bus and arrived in Hollywood ready to go set the night on fire.

Things hadn’t exactly worked out as expected, she had run through all her dough and was at her wits end when she met Sam Shepard at Snyder’s Drugstore over on Vine (the same place where Lana or some screen beauty was “discovered”). He claimed like a million other guys looking for some off-hand sex that he could get her into pictures, if. Well, she did the “if” and he actually had gotten her in films, blue films where he was the cameraman. She was so hungry to get into films that it did not matter to her if that was her entrĂ©e. (Sam had told her how more than one famous star, male and female, had started in the blues and maybe it was true.) Of course part of being a “starlet” was to be available for the Hollywood party circuit, to be available to show the guests a good time, a high-class whore as she well knew once she started working that circuit. But it paid the rent and that is where she met Duke, Duke who was crazy about her from the first time he eyed her (and had her that night). When he talked of marriage she finally thought she had made the big time (and would finally get her “break” since the mob, or rather Buster Brogan was the behind the scenes financier of many film productions). Then this Shepard stepped up for his cut, or else (she had not told Duke of her prior sexual relationship with Shepard and Marlin thought it best not to mention it to him when he reported back). The story sounded familiar to Marlin, he could name actual parallel cases all around town, and more importantly it sounded plausible.      

Maybe that is where the whole thing started to blow up, believing her. No, not believing her for the usual hard luck story that dames will throw at you, and tear at your heart, but because those blue eyes mentioned earlier were stoned, stoned to the gills while she was

telling her lying story. Shana “forgot” to mention that she had had a boyfriend back home, a guy named Kenny Taft, who was supposed to marry her until she got Hollywood stardust in her eyes. This Kenny decided after she dumped him to follow her to the West Coast and they had been lovers and living together until Duke started paying the rent. Moreover Shana had begged Duke pretty please to give her friend from back home a job. Which he did. That is how Kenny wound up being Duke’s driver and confidante.

Now Kenny did not mind, or at least he went along with the idea of Shana being a “party girl,” in fact he encouraged it to further her career. He did not mind or went along with the fact that she was mobbed up but what got to him were those old blue movies, some pretty raw. The way he found out about it was when Duke confided in him that he was being squeezed by this Sam Shepard for pictures taken of his fiancĂ©. And showed Kenny those samples Shepard had sent along as proof. Kenny saw red and decided to confront Shepard about it in order to get all the prints. Well sometimes in this life people, in this case Shepard get on their high horse especially when they see a goldmine ahead. Shepard would not see reason and so Kenny Taft plugged him, plugged him dead.       

That is where believing Shana, doped-up Shana, led to some unintended consequences. Shepard had a partner, a best boy, named Joe Simon, who had copies of the prints for his own purposes and so he tried after Shepard’s untimely death to squeeze Duke, squeeze him big time because he thought that Duke had killed his partner. Duke informed Marlin and he set up a meet with this Joe.    

What Duke and Marlin did not know was that Joe was the guy who provided Shana with her high-grade coke once she got a taste for that after the drugstore stuff faded. She was at Joe’s place when the met occurred, stoned. Here is where Marlin made his final mistake. He really believed that Duke had killed Shepard after working through the possibilities that he knew so he wanted to set up the meet in such a way that Duke would drop in if for no other reason than he was hot-headed enough to come storming in with his own program, an off-hand .38 blaring away. He wanted to see if Duke was in a killing mode. He was, and one Joseph Simon was shot by one Richard “Duke” Ravel. In the confusion though Marlin realized something was wrong with the play, especially when Duke started firing at him in his fury. And on that day one Richard Ravel bought his rest in peace.      

As for Shana, like a million other Shanas, she walked away from the room after perfunctory police questioning, walked away free and clear. For a couple of years she traded in on her notoriety by commanding high prices as a “party girl” and as her looks faded under the weight of the life and dope she too faded, maybe went back to Muncie for all he knew. As for the Shepard case that was never solved, the L.A. Police Department not desiring to spend much time on some pervert cameraman, some low-rent grifter so Kenny Taft never faced the gallows big step-off and for all Marlin knew he too could be back in Muncie. As for Marlin he spent a few restless steamy nights figuring out why he figured wrong, about as wrong as a man could figure. 

December 17th is Chelsea Manning's Birthday

Join In Celebration In Boston -December 14th-Park Street Station-1:00 PM   

Take Action!



Nobel Peace Prize nominee PFC Chelsea Manning has been in prison for over three years for sharing documents that expose US war crimes, government corruption, and corporate influence on US foreign policies. (Learn what WikiLeaks revealed.)  We believe exposing these crimes makes her a hero and a patriot. Yet the government has chosen to persecute the alleged whistle-blower rather than pursue the criminals.
The injustices have continued after Manning’s arrest.  The first eleven months of her imprisonment were spent in solitary confinement in conditions the UN special rapporteur on torture, Juan Mendez, has since called “cruel and inhuman”.   The government also ignored the soldier’s right to a speedy trial, as well as full and timely disclosure of evidence.
It’s time to take action.  We want to show the current Administration officials responsible for Manning’s mistreatment that she has many public supporters. We will not let our voices be ignored. Take to the streets and show your support for PVT Manning. Support her ongoing legal defense. Get your friends involved. Let everyone know PVT Chelsea Manning must be freed! Here are six important ways you can help.

Add your photo in support of PVT Manning’s request for presidential pardon

President Obama has already granted pardons to 39 other prisoners, and a White House spokesperson said he would give consideration to PVT Manning’s request. Showing public support for PVT Manning’s application is the best way to give her a real chance of being released in 3 years, or even sooner.  Sign our petition on Whitehouse.gov, and then submit your photo with a personal message.

You can share the petition with others through e-mail, facebook, and printing out copies to take with you to community events.

Write a letter to Convening Authority Major General Jeffrey S. Buchanan 

Maj. Gen. Buchanan has the power to reduce PVT Manning’s sentence for the first 6 months after the trial. Convening Authorities reduce soldiers’ sentences when they believe the court martial failed to deliver justice. We think Chelsea Manning deserves clemency more than anyone, and we know it’s important to show it!

Write and call the White House

While our current focus is on the White House petition, that is only the beginning of our effort to demonstrate our support for military whistleblowing to the Commander in Chief. You can write to and call the White House in order to express your views in a more personal manner. You can also help by organizing a letter-writing drive with others in your community!

Donate to the appeals process

The legal appeals process is the most important avenue to hold the U.S. military to account for the many ways in which PVT Manning’s due process rights were violated throughout her trial, from the months of unjust and abusive solitary confinement to the utter failure to provide a speedy trial. PVT Manning’s legal defense will target appeals at all of the ways in which PVT Manning’s trial violated her rights under the U.S. Constitution and the UCMJ. Your donation can help support this crucial process.
 By contributing, you’ll also be helping to uphold Americans’ right to a speedy trial, to be treated as innocent until proven guilty, and to be made fully aware of the nature of the charges against them without fear those charges may change midway through the trial.

Write to tell PVT Manning of your support!


Near the end of her trial, Chelsea Manning expressed gratitude to the countless numbers of supporters who have written her letters in prison. Now that the trial is over, she is looking forward to having the ability to write people back.
You can write to PVT Manning at the address below. While the outside of the envelope must be marked “Bradley Manning,” PVT Manning will be happy to accept letters that refer to her with her chosen name Chelsea on the inside.
PVT Bradley E Manning892891300 N Warehouse RdFt Leavenworth KS 66027-2304, USA

Volunteer

We are looking for volunteers to become campaign organizers on an ongoing basis in their local communities.  Also, if you are located in the San Francisco Bay Area, we can use assistance with administrative and other work in our Oakland office.  Videographers and other artists who can attend events or have ideas for special projects are welcome as well.  Contact emma@bradleymanning.org for more information.  Finally, if you’re a student or someone else with significant time to spare on a weekly basis, check out our internship opportunities!

 

Help pressure President Obama to pardon PVT Chelsea Manning! 

 

December 17th is Chelsea Manning's Birthday

 

Take Action!



Nobel Peace Prize nominee PFC Chelsea Manning has been in prison for over three years for sharing documents that expose US war crimes, government corruption, and corporate influence on US foreign policies. (Learn what WikiLeaks revealed.)  We believe exposing these crimes makes her a hero and a patriot. Yet the government has chosen to persecute the alleged whistle-blower rather than pursue the criminals.
The injustices have continued after Manning’s arrest.  The first eleven months of her imprisonment were spent in solitary confinement in conditions the UN special rapporteur on torture, Juan Mendez, has since called “cruel and inhuman”.   The government also ignored the soldier’s right to a speedy trial, as well as full and timely disclosure of evidence.
It’s time to take action.  We want to show the current Administration officials responsible for Manning’s mistreatment that she has many public supporters. We will not let our voices be ignored. Take to the streets and show your support for PVT Manning. Support her ongoing legal defense. Get your friends involved. Let everyone know PVT Chelsea Manning must be freed! Here are six important ways you can help.

Add your photo in support of PVT Manning’s request for presidential pardon

President Obama has already granted pardons to 39 other prisoners, and a White House spokesperson said he would give consideration to PVT Manning’s request. Showing public support for PVT Manning’s application is the best way to give her a real chance of being released in 3 years, or even sooner.  Sign our petition on Whitehouse.gov, and then submit your photo with a personal message.

You can share the petition with others through e-mail, facebook, and printing out copies to take with you to community events.

Write a letter to Convening Authority Major General Jeffrey S. Buchanan 

Maj. Gen. Buchanan has the power to reduce PVT Manning’s sentence for the first 6 months after the trial. Convening Authorities reduce soldiers’ sentences when they believe the court martial failed to deliver justice. We think Chelsea Manning deserves clemency more than anyone, and we know it’s important to show it!

Write and call the White House

While our current focus is on the White House petition, that is only the beginning of our effort to demonstrate our support for military whistleblowing to the Commander in Chief. You can write to and call the White House in order to express your views in a more personal manner. You can also help by organizing a letter-writing drive with others in your community!

Donate to the appeals process

The legal appeals process is the most important avenue to hold the U.S. military to account for the many ways in which PVT Manning’s due process rights were violated throughout her trial, from the months of unjust and abusive solitary confinement to the utter failure to provide a speedy trial. PVT Manning’s legal defense will target appeals at all of the ways in which PVT Manning’s trial violated her rights under the U.S. Constitution and the UCMJ. Your donation can help support this crucial process.
 By contributing, you’ll also be helping to uphold Americans’ right to a speedy trial, to be treated as innocent until proven guilty, and to be made fully aware of the nature of the charges against them without fear those charges may change midway through the trial.

Write to tell PVT Manning of your support!


Near the end of her trial, Chelsea Manning expressed gratitude to the countless numbers of supporters who have written her letters in prison. Now that the trial is over, she is looking forward to having the ability to write people back.
You can write to PVT Manning at the address below. While the outside of the envelope must be marked “Bradley Manning,” PVT Manning will be happy to accept letters that refer to her with her chosen name Chelsea on the inside.
PVT Bradley E Manning892891300 N Warehouse RdFt Leavenworth KS 66027-2304, USA

Volunteer

We are looking for volunteers to become campaign organizers on an ongoing basis in their local communities.  Also, if you are located in the San Francisco Bay Area, we can use assistance with administrative and other work in our Oakland office.  Videographers and other artists who can attend events or have ideas for special projects are welcome as well.  Contact emma@bradleymanning.org for more information.  Finally, if you’re a student or someone else with significant time to spare on a weekly basis, check out our internship opportunities!

 

Help pressure President Obama to pardon PVT Chelsea Manning! 

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