July 4, 2024 - aka The Twilight Zone

I did spend several days of a long 4th of July  weekend watching a marathon of original Twilight Zone episodes. It seemed the most honest and appropriate way to mark what is likely the end of the run for the US of A. Since the former president/coup leader/traitor has been deemed immune from criminal prosecution we now abandon Independence and Freedom to return to being merely subjects of a King. So yeah, Twilight Zone. 

It was a very powerful series of stand-alone episodes which have had a global appeal. Often very political, rejecting authoritarianism in every aspect of society and the Kurrent Konservative Karenism would be protesting every episode if the show were being made today.

The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street - where neighbors violently turn on each other for minor or meaningless occurrences - but it turns out they are all being manipulated by alien observers, who sow confusion to show how easily they can turn to enemies, part of their strategy of world domination.

The closing narration of that episode captures the current American dilemma ... 

"The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices ... to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill ... and suspicion can destroy ... and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own—for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is ... that these things cannot be confined to ... The Twilight Zone!"

Secrets from My Radio Days

 Recently listening to a song - shown below - reminded me of some very secret joys of my work in radio over the years, doing things most folks never realized or some did realize here and there and I met some truly fascinating and disturbing people. While pondering those events I decided to tell some secrets.

Let's start with this 11 minute song which prompted the memories, let it play as background as you read. 

During one of my stints behind the microphone, this time at a tiny but adorable AM station, I would arrive at work about 5:30 in the morning toting a 32 oz jug of coffee. This was back when I could smoke in the booth (well, got away with smoking, bad for the electronics ya know). A computer program was running overnight and I would log in and begin changing the programmed music selections. It had taken some weeks to scour the entire database of songs, but there were some gems in there, such as the song above. 

Noooobody was playing those long tracks anywhere anymore. But my old hippie heart smiled hearing it. I'd stack all the commercials up just before the half hour, so starting at 6 am I'd get about 25 mins of uninterrupted music for the listeners (and myself). A typical set would include the album cut of the Beach Boys "Good Vibrations", or a double-take of the theme from "Superfly" followed by "Freddy's Dead" from that album, "Spirit In The Sky", most of the Beatles "Abbey Road", most of Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust", "or "Season of the Witch" by Donovan, the long versions of "Riders on the Storm" and even played the full version of "The End" by the Doors, but only a few times - it was a little too dark for wake and bake music.

There were also two turntables I could use, 8-track cart machines, cassette players, and CD players too. (And yes, I snuck in Beck's "Where's It At".)

I did everything I could to make it the most groovy hour of music on the radio. Beginning at 7am while doing my version of a live-call in radio show (more on that later) (maybe) - I would usually draw from my own music, which could be rap, jazz, big band, whatever I wanted. Unfettered and free to do as I wanted was an amazing feeling.

What I noticed pretty quickly was that huge numbers of listeners were tuned it. They didn't call in making requests or anything, but by 7 am I had full lines waiting to come on the air for the impending my-version-of-a-live-call-in radio show - and every one would start by saying "Great music this morning".

Yes, it was. And we never once spoke to that hour of music on the call-in show. I think we all just enjoyed the hell out of it.

One other secret I will share in this post - there was a time when a small AM station signed off at midnight and on at 6. The programmed announcement that played automatically was, I found out, some 15 years old and the person speaking was long dead. So I made a new one.

I thought long on that one, and picked an instrumental song that sounded at first like generic background music as I recorded my voice saying "We've reached the end of our broadcast day ... " I let the whole song play, and it got way more intense. The instruments get weird, the guitar weaves into a frenzy, and it seems off or something. The song is Frank Zappa's signature piece, "Peaches En Regalia". Good times.

Mmmm, A Fresh Hot Cup of Joe

 I really dislike most social media platforms, so I'm refreshing your Cup of Joe. 

Even the letters are bigger now.

America has, however, gotten smaller and meaner in many ways. We both know it. Like we both know that the really hard, hard facts and choices are here in front of us.

So let me, as always, be plain about the state o' the nation.

The con-man loser, disgraced former president Trump, is facing indictments on a wide number of crimes and felonies from two different states (so far), from the Department of Justice, the FBI, and on-going Congressional hearings into the insurrection on Jan. 6. 

And while hundreds of those violent attackers and their leaders are being sentenced, and many others face likely prosecution - the real question remains: What do we do with Trump?

 Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3:​

"No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."

Komatsu and Oyama Remembered

Komatsu in 'Chibideka Mongatrai'

Obviously, I have not written here in some time.

I decided to say nothing here, as I was doubtful my endless rants of the obvious failings of the previous  president were of any use. Thankfully, I learned by the 2020 elections end, that our democracy was preserved by about 8 million voters. Thin margin perhaps but enough to alter the grim path we were on Yet, I also learned that where I live I am politically outnumbered about 4 to 1 - about the same amount I have experienced in the years and years I have lived here ... and yet i remain.

Call me Odd Man Out. And no, I have never been comfortable with this particular reality. So I write what I can seldom say.

And after perusing other options of the online world, those many thousands and thousands of platforms and apps  world gurgles and burbles its way through to self-expression - this humble and loveable blog is the best place to share. Here, I am the only one, I can speak freely.

I can ponder through words the thoughts wandering about my old mind (I'm 60 - time left is ticking past loudly.

I continue to marvel at the presence and uses the world has made of the internet - fascinated by the swipe-left-or-right narrative so many engage in, the willingness to answer any question posed by some Facebook data miner, speeding through miniaturized experience. People of all ages and sexes make money online opening boxes and packages to reveal what's inside, or how to apply make-up, or repair a car or a washing machine, or being creative with music and art, or even just jerking off live on camera for tip money. In my day, one had to go to a big city and find a peep show to do that.

Anyway.

I was eating lunch (eel sushi and thai yellow curry chicken) in a small Asian restaurant and I put my phone away since it had little battery power left. I realized I did not even have a book in my car I could have brought in with me - it made me feel ashamed. 

I work with folks in their 20s and 30s and have noticed whenever there is a pause in work or just conversation, 8 seconds will go past and their heads will bend down to their phones, fingering away swiping up and down and left and right. 

So now I have two books in my car. 

I'm no Luddite.

I was pondering movies I could watch online (how I spend most of my time online) and something reminded me of the first foreign language film I saw. I was 7 or maybe 8, and on Saturday mornings I eagerly waited for the CBS Children's Film Festival program to air. I was quite delighted to be able to type CBS Children's Film Festival into the magic google machine - and there it was listed, along with all the films they showed during their very long run. 

It was a Japanese film made in 1958 called "Skinny and Fatty", or originally "Chibideka Monogatari". It's a very simple story of two young boys in elementary school who become friends. Once I recalled seeing it - images and scenes filled my head. The story follows them through their school days and lives at home. They become friends, the smaller sized boy, Komatsu, lives in a very small one-room house and the heavier boy, Oyama. lives in a large two-story home. Komatsu's mother works in a quarry all day, his father works out of town, seldom home. Oyama's mom stays at home, dad is home every night. The boys get bullied, but don't give in. Komatsu always tells his new friend to never give up, to try to achieve, to have confidence.

All I could find of the 45 minute movie was a horribly washed-out print on YouTube, and watched it anyway. I remembered how much that movie impacted me - it wasn't about adults or the goofy kids in America I saw on TV. Their lives are ordinary and still, powerful. It was one of several young experiences that made me want to write, to tell stories, to make movies and plays. There is almost a manga-quality to the movie, it's steeped in late 50s Japanese culture, and likely helped lay a foundation for an appreciation of their styles of storytelling. 

And that's what I decided to write about today. 

The 2020 Presidential Debate: We've Been Here Before

 Politics in 2020

Facts and Truth - the Vaccine for Our Nation

Yes, yes, despite all my efforts, this post is yet another one about the idiot living in the White House, and tangentially the idiots who think he is a genius. 

There's just this verifiable galaxy of chaos engulfing the country and, let's be plain - the chaos has cost lives. 

A particular detail about myself is I am one the elite cadre of Real Journalists - an alchemical creation made in my youth in the melting pot of newsprint and Murrow's television - made only with a relentless application of shoe leather and work and commitment to report two things: Facts and Truth. And by youth I mean, well, at the age of 11 I was the sole writer and publisher of a weekly 4 page news report on local and national issues which I printed 100 copies of and passed out for free to classmates and adults who needed it.

In other words, news and commentary is Foundational for me. And Journalism - news reporting and commentary - is Foundational to America.

Any good reporter can tell you, small petty men and women create little fiefdoms and large ones inside our daily politics and always have, whether on a local state or national level, we even have these fiefdoms pop up where we work, in the ways we interact socially. It's a behavior of the emotionally stunted. 

If Walter Cronkite were alive during this presidency, he would have already, personally, socked him in the nose.

The Press en masse is not the enemy of the people, Lies are the enemy. The news is not fake, its really that fucking bad. Bizarre rumors become National Policy. The one branch of our government, the presidency, has become a battering ram to the basic structure of government. What has been the most unnerving and disturbing aspect of this chaos is the boundless support the Republican Party provides for his lawlessness. 

Sigh.

Out of an enormous legacy of overall respect for whomever holds the office, the Press was reluctant early on, and even now, to call his statements what that are. False. Lies, Imaginary. I tip my hat to them for standing up more and more in the face of death threats and ridicule. I have one very big problem with cable news networks - far too much focus on panel shows of media consultants offering precious little in the way of Facts. Media has, especially with television and now the Internet, been a little too in love with itself.

America is not great right now.

(Though have we not learned very clearly how when things are hardest, the majority of us - we pull together to help each other?)

This president's failures are no hoax.

Accurate, factual, truthful documentation of this horrible era will be plentiful in future years - this post is now part of that record, another verification of our troubled times - As Merlin said in the movie Excalibur "It is the doom of men that they forget. They forget."

The John Wick of the Ocean

There are some pretty amazing stories and movies of maritime adventure, and vengeful aquatic creatures, but when Dino de Laurentis released his version of a vengeful whale, the result was truly unique. Imagine blending the retribution of "Death Wish" and Moby Dick.

I watched "Orca" (1977) again recently, I realized how special the movie really was.

The scruffy Richard Harris plays a fisherman who angers and incurs the wrath of the deadliest killer whale - a whale whose anger has no bounds. As others have noted, once the vendetta against Harris begins after Harris inadvertently kills a pregnant wale wife, then pretty much everyone Harris knows or talks do gets killed.

Before the movie ends,this Orca Assassin has wiped out Harris' entire town. This whale is more dangerous and more angry than John Wick.

Revenge is a dish best served cold and wet.

A User Review on IMDB masterfully lays out the film:

The dramatic fight between Captain Nolan and the whale could have easily become silly, but it doesn't. The Arctic Circle is accurately represented as a cold place with many iceberg, some of which whales can thwack themselves upon catapulting middle-aged Irishmen forty feet in the air. Keep in mind, also, this was done without the use of computer graphics. Steven Spielberg did not even put the shark in Jaws until over halfway through the film. Why? To hide a machine so fake that I can only assume one of his children made it at camp. The mechanical killer whale in Orca is almost indistinguishable from the stock footage of killer whales continually played throughout the movie.

In 1977, how many directors were brave enough to shoot a killer whale jumping from one side of the boat, eating actor Robert Carradine, and landing on the other side? Just one, Michael Anderson. His bold choices along with screenwriters Luciano Vincenzoni and Sergio Donati (who both show an above average command of the English languages for native-born Italian speakers) make the film a statement not only about whale hunting and whale forgiveness seeking, but also about humanity. Charlotte Rampling's appeal to Nolan not to go fight the whale just because the whale wants revenge is not just about social protocols of how to make it up to the father of a whale baby you accidentally killed, but also an argument against the death penalty. Will Sampson's pointless death is an indictment of the senseless slaughter of tens of millions of Native Americans. When the whale knocks down Captain Nolan's house without any explanation of this whale became such a genius that he can not only knows to knock down structural supports but also can look up addresses in the phone book, it directly shows how our incursion into the world of nature is two-fold. Robert Carradine's tragic death in the film is social commentary on the probability of being eaten if you stand around on a boat being followed by a crazed killer whale. And probably also something about Vietnam, I assume.

And while most in Hollywood choose not to admit it, many have ripped off Orca. The dead baby scene in Trainspotting is suspiciously reminiscent of the dead whale fetus scene in Orca. The creepy quasi-romance between an intelligent female and a somewhat crazy violent child murderer is directly stolen by George Lucas for Star Wars: Episode II. The use of icebergs is blatantly co-opted by Titanic, and I have never heard James Cameron so much as thank Michael Anderson. And don't even get me started on Free Willy. Orca is a complicated story. If you only enjoy movies with obvious heroes and villains, this is not for you. The characters are conflicted. Very conflicted. Take for instance how the killer whale jumps for joy after biting off Bo Derek's leg. The whale shows both glee in his jumps, but also the pain of having lost his family and never being able to bring them back no matter how hard he fights those who took them from him. Like Batman. You see, the only thing black and white in this movie is the killer whale itself. While Orca does not now get the respect it deserves, in time people will realize its genius. Just as people did not understand gravity or continental drift, in time they will come to recognize Orca as the greatest cinematic achievement of all time.

Good News, Everyone!!

Over the years of serving up your Cup of Joe (fresh and hot), this semi-experimental online  original commentary on our collective Past, Present and Future, well, sure, there's been great focus on politics. But something happened.

Pretty much a year, two even, have been posts about the Con Man Who Swindled America.

Titanic effort has been applied all along by yours truly to resist attempting to endlessly post pithy captures our current Idiocracy. The effort has won the day, so, in the words of Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth, "Good news, everyone!" More normal weird and wonderful items are making a welcome return here.

(No, I'm not turning blindly away. How could anyone? We all know what a horrible place we've become. America is now the place parents warn their children about. "And if they catch you, they'll lock you away forever.")

So.

First we heard about an Alabama man who allegedly had an Attack Squirrel, which he had been feeding meth in order to make it "aggressive", so the police better watch out! Then came The Chase after said owner of the perhaps meth-addicted Attack Squirrel.



Ok then.
---
Movies have been on my mind too, as always. Especially regarding the process of making them. As a hardcore fan of the films of Stanley Kubrick, I I enjoyed this oral history about the making of the orgy scene in Kubrick's final film, Eyes Wide Shut.

"Peter Cavaciuti (Steadicam operator): Stanley’s precision was the thing I remember most. I had three lasers on the Steadicam, pointed to the ground, and when they all lined up, a grip would drop a plumb line from a string from the lens; then I’d line my lasers up, and then the grip would talk me into the mark, saying I was two inches, one inch on the mark. That level of precision was pretty exceptional. You’d very rarely do less than 20 takes. So physically and intellectually, it was demanding. Very often, Stanley would say to me that I wasn’t on my mark. I’d look down and I had my three lasers, so I’d say, “Well, I am on the mark, Stanley.” And one time Tom Cruise whispered to me, “Just move the camera, Pete.” [I realized] it was just code for saying that Stanley wanted to put the camera in a different place."

As much as he was known for being a control freak, it is much more a case of his being a collaborator - gathering very talented people, work with them for months to create the best way to tell a scene or a story, and still at the moment of shooting the scene being open to what else might be possible. 
I was also struck by descriptions of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman as great to work with - helpful and contributing to the work. One doesn't spend years working on a difficult project unless their is great commitment and excitement.

--

How about pretty much every way you can cook a potato?

So Many Enemies He Needs Some Executive Time to Relax a Little

So the president repeatedly says the American press is America's enemy - but not one word about Russia threatening a nuclear attack on America ... 

Former FBI director says he fears the president is a Russian asset .... but the press is the enemy (oh, and the entire FBI).

Saudi Arabia murders a journalist, the president's staff has secretly sold nuclear weapon secrets to them ... because the press is the enemy?

The president calls for retribution against media comedies for jokes about his great self, and a coast guard officer is thankfully arrested for planning mass murder based on a hit list spreadsheet of media targets ....because the press is the enemy.

Except the press is not the enemy at our southern border. It's all the non-white people. Such a horrific enemy the president says America has a national emergency. 

Odd ...The press, non-whites, treaties with our allies, our military alliances, our trade with other nations, these are the enemies of America in the eyes and mind and actions of the president and his followers. Oh, and all the ex members of his administration. They are all bad people too. And his lawyers. And former friends. 

So many enemies. Gonna have to grab some Executive Time.

The Question Only You Can Answer

As much as I have railed against folks like our current president who promote racist ways, let me instead today refer you to Martin Luther King Jr. and celebrate our better selves, and go gently among the battered and wounded America by way of this humble but lovable blog and remind you of how much King got right, that hope among all of us rises in every walk of life, that possibility, life, freedom and equality exist, that justice exists. 

However.

I am stumped and stupified by the reality that this country is still battling over the same ground so many years after King's death. Since that battle still rages, then, as now, it is my responsibility - our responsibility - to speak up and call out the racism and injustice others consistently tolerate if not promote. This is America -  everyone is an immigrant's child. 

So on this day, let us remind ourselves of some of King's words:


--  "Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'"


 --  "An individual has not begun to live until he can rise above the narrow horizons of his particular individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. And this is one of the big problems of life, that so many people never quite get to the point of rising above self. And so they end up the tragic victims of self-centeredness. They end up the victims of distorted and disrupted personality."

The Worst Kidney Stone in Human History

Here at the end of 2018, I am somewhat embarrassed so many of the few posts this year have been about the Fake President currently in office. I didn't want to do that, but the harm being done by the individual is consistently alarming and newsworthy.

I take some minimal comfort in the reality that the majority of voters cast their votes for someone else. Also bringing relief, the fact that the political faction responsible for his term were pretty much thrown out in the elections of the Fall of this year. But restoring the nation will be a great task and one that takes more time. Simply put, this bizzaro episode isn't going to end well. 

So onward to 2019, and again, I'll exert more effort to renew the readability and worth of posts on this humble, but lovable page. As for our current discomfort, it shall pass .... like the worst kidney stone in human history.