Hoo Boy The Birthday of Big Marine Mammal Avatar Creators
Moving through life, we find ourselves on occasion in the midst of experience or the presence of a thing which resonates and reminds that something, more than what we think we know or can perceive (if we would just stop and shut up and pay enough attention to see), exists.
Principally, this happens when we're 'out in nature', but it also happens when we encounter some art -- in particular, when it's been created by someone who made deep and illuminating connections and Brought Them Back To Tell Thee.
I blew it this year and did not remember the anniversary ("Shame over you," said the Whale). So from August 1st in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022 and 23.
_____________________________
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. -- Herman Melville / Moby-Dick, or, The Whale
I keep considering writing a post from the viewpoint of the Whale just for the potential Yucks (because, god knows, We Need The Yucks Wherever We Can Get Them), but gave it up and settled for the Humorous Image.
I voice The Whale elsewhere on social media. He's thoughtful, makes Pontiac GTO noises in the water (" 'Vroom Vroom', said the Whale") and is honestly amazed at the delusional stalking being done to him by Ahab, "that crazy old genocidal fart."
The best thing about BLCKDGRD's annual post, and the reason I mention it here, is -- Herman tends to be overlooked in a culture whose highest expression is a Taylor Swift remix (I take your bullets, I take your bullets).
It's good to be reminded that the Whale is still there -- as he reminds us that we are chased by our mortality, the fate we make through our emotion and actions; and that sometimes the Form Of The Destructor is large, albino, and aquatic.
________________________________
I was introduced to Melville when I was fourteen -- not through the novel he's most often identified with, but in the short work, "Bartleby The Scrivener" (1853), a classic in its own right. Ishmael's tale was next, and I was, uh, hooked. Later, I wasn't able to read anything by James or Conrad where the voice of the narrator was almost identical to the one conjured up when I encountered first with Melville.
"Moby Dick: Or, A Whale" is ubiquitous. There is No Whale before He who populates a portion of that book (Yeah, okay; 'Shamu' and 'Willy' are not the same thing).
The Whale at least lurks, an unseen presence, in the background of all the on-ship action -- like Death, or Fate, or reruns of Fringe. As if you might hear the Whale chuckling and snickering in the dark during certain scenes, because the Whale knew what was coming:
" 'What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare? Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is as an errand-boy in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power; how then can this one small heart beat; this one small brain think thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that living, and not I. By heaven, man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike.'
" 'Heh heh heh heh,' " came a deep basso rumble out of the darkness which hid the waters. Ahab started, but did not otherwise acknowledge the presence of that upon which he had focused for so long."
That Big Marine Mammal is archetypal, now. And, aber natürlich, the moment something makes an appearance on "Family Guy", it's an absolute certainty that, whatever it is, it's now hard-coded into our DNA.
Herman Left Out The Part Where Whales Prefer Raisin Bran
You Will Not Be Able To Un-See This Travesty
______________________________
UND DA IST NOCH IMMER MEHR: Once I saw this, I could not un-see it, either. It is an actual book. Swear to god.
_________________________________
UND: WAS IST AUCH SCHON WIEDER LOS? MEHR: At one point, if you had $39.9K, Jim Morrison's Moby could have been yours. At that price, you'd think the seller would have provided free shipping -- but, remember: this is Aremica, Land Of The Free and Home Of The Hip.
This is a topic never far from my mind in These Days. Not only am I chronologically closer to death, it seems the circumstances in life I've taken for granted may be changing to include a higher level of risk; a lot more rapidly than I'd thought.
I've been in immediate danger of dying, of death right in my fucking face, four times. In each case, it was only clear immediately after: Holy Shit; that almost took me out. I didn't have time, in the moment things were going down, to realize, this is Last Day. I checked in with the Last Of The Old Unit about this and their experiences are roughly the same. So: I not crazy.
In terms of death as loss, I've had my share. Only one or two had coincidental events, what I think of as 'echoes', after, which might appear to some like a message or a parting word. But I'm not sure -- so I use the word 'coincidental' as a hedge, a cheat; an out. Because there isn't any way to know.
The short, sharp shock -- out of the Blue; into the Black -- is how death happens for so many people around the world, in These Days. It's only by the luck of the draw that I've lived more than seven decades and have the capability to contemplate my physical end from a smallish apartment in a major Blue city at the western edge of the North American continent, beside the broad Pacific, now heating up like oceans everywhere.
_________________________
And when I think about life, all our lives, how brief some of them are (and, let's face it: It's always going to seem too brief) I remind myself about the Iceman.
In 1991, the preserved, effectively mummified physical remains of a Bronze-Age human were found on a glacier. He was dubbed "Ötzi The Iceman". Ötzi. It sounds friendly, like a nickname for some your slightly daffy uncle, if you come from a German family; an attempt to turn this fellow -- preserved by chance and climate -- into a mascot for tourists, a name to print on tee-shirts and mugs and lunch boxes.
Ötzi died 5,300 years ago (about 3,300 BC) in the mountain pass where his body was found, between current-day Italy and Austria, shot with an arrow by an unknown assailant. He was found with possessions and clothing. His body was found with intact genitalia, but at some point between discovery and transport to a climate-controlled environment, some modern-day fuckwad stole his penis; of course they did.
Eventually, his facial features were reconstructed -- as forensic anthropologists do with modern-day murder victims -- and we found he looked, more or less, like Charles Bukowski:
Ötzi (Not His Real Name)
The man with this face lived and died Five Thousand, Three Hundred Years Ago. This places him in the Prehistoric era (from ~3 million years BC until 1,200 BC). Specifically, in the Bronze Age.
He died 3,000 years before Greek civilization developed, or the Roman empire -- and hundreds of years before the 'Old Kingdom' Egyptian civilization began and the first Pyramids built.
He died four thousand years before the Buddha. At least 2,300 years before either Jesus or Mohammed are reported to have lived.
When Ötzi was alive, the earliest human written languages had just begun to appear.
_________________________
My Dog Trainer advises that packs of Ibex meat were found in Ötzi's carrying bag -- and, while he was in excellent physical shape, his arteries showed significant Atherosclerosis. Some Vegans have said this is evidence that a presumably meat-based, Prehistoric 'Paleo' diet, eaten by an actual Bronze Age human, is a bad idea.
And: He was discovered because the glacier which had held his body over thousands of years was melting.
_______________________
Thanatology:
Study of death and practices and beliefs attached to it
1. Life is finite. Every single one of us will die.
The Population Reference Bureau estimates the current population at 7 billion humans. They estimate only 107 billion people have ever lived -- meaning, some 15 humans have died for every person currently living.
2. We have no idea if, as individual consciousnesses, humans continue in any form after death.
Some people have beliefs, or faith, in specific outcomes. But (all the YouTubes about NDEs aside) feelings are not facts. No human being alive knows what happens to us. Anyone who says they do is comfortingly deluded.
This existential problem -- what is this, why are we, and what happens to us when we die is the Ur-question of human existence.
_____________________________
3. There is a cave system in South Africa, showing proof of its use as a burial site by an ancestor species, Homo Naledi. Designs were also found scratched into the rock near the burials. We have no idea what they mean.
But it appears that 300,000 years ago, Naledi buried their dead, laying them out in a specific way, with stone tools and other items. It suggests the Naledi had concepts of Self / Something Else, and Self / Here; that they believed being somewhere else after death. We don't know. There was no written language three hundred thousand years ago.
______________________________
Neolithic Homo Sapiens buried their dead with possessions, with food, weapons and utensils, which would seem to indicate a belief that the deceased existed after death, going somewhere, though the body decayed. We don't know. There was no written language in the Neolithic.
_____________________________
If This Is Friday, It Must Be The Afterlife
A. It isn't clear where the idea of an afterlife first appeared in human religion. Humans began organizing in villages, towns and cities, around 10,000 BC. Per Wikipedia, The earliest undercurrents of Mesopotamian religion developed in ~6,000 BC, coinciding with the region being permanently settled -- and the earliest real evidence of organized religion dates to roughly 4,000 BC, coinciding with the invention of writing.
The forces of nature were worshiped as providers of sustenance. About 3,000 BC, the forces and objects of worship which used to be essentially nameless were given names and personalities. Multiple divinities, each with particular functions, appeared.
Around ~2,000 - 1,000 BC, the last stages of Mesopotamian polytheism developed. It showed greater emphasis on personal religion, with the gods structured into a hierarchy; the national god of whichever (Babylonian, Akkadian) being the head of the pantheon.
Walk Like An Egyptian
B. By 2,000 BCE (or, 1,300 years after Ötzi died), the Egyptians had developed their own polytheistic religion around the notion that humans possessed a soul and, at death, that soul's place on a spectrum of good and evil would be judged.
Per Wikipedia, "Upon death, one entered the underworld, where Anubis, God of the dead, weighed the person's heart on a scale against a feather... of order, truth, and righteousness." If the heart weighed more than the feather (like the 'Witches weigh as much as a Duck' scene in Monty Python's Holy Grail), then the heart would be devoured by a waiting demon. You "would die a second death and be eliminated from existence", forever.
If your heart weighs as much as, or less than, the feather, you are allowed to pass into the Land of the Sun. This was someplace else, mythic or extra-dimensional, not a physical place on Earth. A comfortable, abundant land -- essentially, the best aspects of life as experienced in the Kingdom of Egypt.
Tewaret, Hippo Moon Goddess You Bet, Guides The Departed. Or, You Know, Not.
This Eschatology was supported by a complex set of beliefs, involving prayers and rites. At the height of ancient Egyptian culture -- the Middle Kingdom -- after death, funerary rites lasted over a month. There was an elaborate process of embalming and mummification; tombs filled with decorations and hieroglyphic ritual prayers, and items for the deceased's existence in the afterlife -- possessions, food, weapons; statuary representing servants.
Surviving family members performed regular ancestor rites to pray and make offerings to the gods on behalf of their deceased. When a Pharaoh died, they had attained status as a god; all Egyptians could pray and make offerings at their temples in the necropolis of the Valley of the Kings.
Egypt had developed all this at leasta thousand yearsbefore the rise of ancient Greece, and Rome.
Grecian Afterlife Thirst Trap
C. In Greek Eschatology, Hermes, the Messenger, delivered departed souls to the banks of the river Styx, where they waited until a boat operated by Charon the Ferryman appeared to take them across and into Hades -- which, to the Greeks, was another physical place on earth; the land of the dead. Charon demanded compensation; Greek funerary rites included putting a coin under the deceased's tongue so they could pay that last passage.
In Hades, three legendary kings judged a soul's conduct in life. Those who had lived pure lives, or were relatives of the gods (who always seeming to be having sex with humans), went to The Elysian Fields -- green valleys and mountains, where all was peaceful, and the Sun always shone for the guiltless and connected.
The majority of Greeks, their good and evil deeds essentially in balance, or who were indecisive in life, went to The Asphodel Fields -- a sort of low-rent version of Elysium; something like Hooterville, the location of the action in TV's Green Acres, but without a laugh track.
Finally, those who had blasphemed against the gods or been consciously evil were sent to Tartarus, a place foul and stygian where they would be burned in lava or stretched on racks (definitely without a laugh track).
When In Rome, Do As The Greeks Do
D. After Rome invaded Macedonia and southern Greece in 146 BC, it absorbed Greek art and culture, the Pantheon of Greek deities and their afterlife cosmology -- with its Egyptian flavor of souls being judged, and specific levels of afterlife experience based on that judgement.
Virgil, the Roman author who created the three most important Latin poems in antiquity, described the afterlife as the Romans adopted it in his epic, the Aeneid, written around 24 BC. Virgil makes a tour of Hades, guided by his recently dead father (as Dante would later have Virgil guiding him).
(Just a note: Virgil's poetry was a Big Deal in that long-gone Roman world. The UK Guardian recently reported that a shard of pottery found at an archeological site in Spain had lines from a poem by Virgil inscribed in Latin into the clay before firing. This was in an age where poetry actually meant something.)
Because You Never Know
E.Sheol, the Jewish concept of an afterlife, began as the universal destination of the dead, a place of darkness to which both the righteous and the unrighteous, regardless of their moral choices in life, will go.
It wasn't a place of active punishment, but a land as far removed from Paradise -- from God -- as possible. And in Judaism, being separated from God (the most perfect expression of existence) is a terrible thing.
In 500 BC, Sheol was being portrayed in some Jewish texts as the place where the righteous and the wicked were separated into different afterlife regions. In other texts, it was described as a place of punishment, meant for the wicked dead alone.
In 200 BC -- roughly the same time Rome was absorbing Greece into its empire -- Hebrew scriptures were being translated into Greek in ancient Alexandria. Scribes substituted the 'Sheol' in Judaism with the Greek word, "Hades" -- and the Greek concept of an afterlife along with it.
Make The Baby Jesus Cry And Go To Hell
F. Christian Eschatology focuses on the divinity of one person -- who supposedly taught about life both physical and spiritual, and was put to death for bucking the authority of the Jewish religious order and Roman occupation -- an apostate and a terrorist. They were raised from the dead, ascended to heaven... and at our death, if we had followed their teachings, kept our noses and our hands clean and believed in their divinity, then we could, too.
By 325 AD, Christianity had become the state religion of the Roman empire. Emperor Constantine I called a council of Christian heavyweights, in Nicaea -- and over two months of arguing, agreed on what the doctrine of their now official state religion would be. This was followed in 390 AD by another council, in Hippo, to determine what official scripture would support that previously-agreed doctrine. There was editing, exclusion; other texts, like the 'Gnostic Gospels', were suppressed. The result was the Bible.
At these two councils, the streams of Mediterranean / Middle Eastern religious belief and tradition which had encountered and cross-pollinated each other -- The Babylonian and Akkadian informing the Egyptian, flowing into the Greek and then Roman; the long Jewish traditions --all came together.
__________________________
One of the most influential writings, not part of the Bible, which influenced Christian ideas about an afterlife was Dante di Alighiero degli Alighier's Inferno (Hell), one part of his 'Divine Comedy' -- a long, three-part narrative poem, published through the early 1300's.
Dante's great unrequited love, Beatrice Portinari, had died in 1290. His love for her was his north star for the remainder of his life -- and he tells his readers her death was the reason for the poem. It was a chronicle of his search for her soul, to lead her out of the Inferno, to Paradise, guided by the ghost of Virgil on the journey.
Dante took Virgil's description of the Roman Hades, borrowed from the Greek, influenced by Judaism and the Egyptians, and expanded on it. In Dante's artistic imagination, Hell was a funnel of nine descending 'Circles', each of which providing horrifying punishments for classes of sin and transgression, narrowing down to the final Circle at the bottom -- a plain of ice, where Lucifer, a titanic being with multiple faces, stood bound with chains and buried to the waist.
Dante was a deeply involved Player in the 14th century politics of Florence, his city-state birthplace -- and, he was no punk artist, but a first-wave fighter, rapier and blade, in open wars between factions. As a political person, his 'Divine Comedy' was as much subtle commentary on contemporary politics as an artistic expression, full of 'inside baseball' references -- some of those getting roasted in the hell he invented were easily recognizable to a sophisticated audience.
This is one of the most important aspects of Dante's work: His notions of Heaven and Hell were his invention, his artistic imagination. For seven hundred years, they have profoundly shaped the popular, public and secular notions in the Western world of what happens after death. And, dig it:He did that with a work of fiction!
In 1321, Dante contracted malaria and died. No one knows what happened to him after that, if anything.
(Side Note: I recommend two utterly different novels featuring the Dantesque vision as a setting -- Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's Inferno [1976], and Hell, by Robert Olen Butler [2009].
(The long-time Sci-Fi duo ['Mote In God's Eye', and Niven's Ringworld saga, are still popular] produced an underworld that is a bit dated but very readable. Butler's book involves a former mega-star news anchor, now broadcasting The Nightly News From Hell, on his search for A Way Out. Butler writes well; it's worth the trip.)
Dante's Big Vacation Guide:
Click To Enlarge -- It's Easy And Fun!
___________________________
Songs From The Bardo
G.The structure of Buddhist belief is too complicated to articulate here in detail. But: after death, a person enters a non-physical realm, the Bardo, where they encounter the essence of their own mind, locked by habit into a series of karmic imprints. As Ram Das once described the human mind, it behaves "like a drunken monkey bitten by a scorpion".
A person is presented an opportunity for awareness that all things are part of the great form / formlessness, all and nothing at once; are simply projections of one's own mind; and in that moment of realization attain enlightenment and become part of a greater cosmology.
Most of us, however, blow that opportunity and have to enter the Bardo of Becoming -- where we encounter our own minds: whatever we conceptualize, will be so. Basically, that scene from 'Ghostbusters', on steroids:
Stantz: What do you mean, choose? We don't understand.
Gozer: Choose; choose the form of the Destructor!
Venkman: Oh, I get it! I get it. Ohhh; very cute. Whatever we think of! If we think of J.Edgar Hoover, then J.Edgar Hoover will appear and destroy us, okay? So empty your heads... Don't think of anything. We've only got one shot at this.
Gozer: The choice is made; the Traveller has come!
Venkman: Woah, woah woah; nobody 'choosed' anything! ... what did you do, Ray?
Stanz: I tried to think of the most harmless thing. Something I loved from my childhood, something that could never, ever destroy us... It's Mr. Stay-Puft, the Marshmallow Man.
Venkman: Aw; Mother Pus-Bucket... Good goin', Ray.
Buddhists spend much effort on meditation to discipline and focus the mind in preparation for death -- first, to have the best chance of not missing one of the opportunities the Bardo presents for enlightenment, and so step off the Great Wheel of death and rebirth. Second, to withstand the terrifying, anything-goes capabilities of our own minds.
Then (after one last opportunity to Get It; at almost each stage in this process of The Bardo, there seem to be multiple chances to obtain enlightenment), we may be reincarnated through rebirth. No one remembers their time in the Bardo -- as long as 49 days on Earth, so the traditions say. And, Big Wheel keeps on turnin'.
There is also a chance that you may be attracted to any of the five Realms of Samsara, illusion, and so wander in self-projection forever. Or you may continue on the cycle of birth, life, death, reincarnation, until you obtain enlightenment and step off the wheel, or perhaps if you can't will be seen as a defective part by the universe and discarded. But no one really knows.
__________________________
You Never Know
And, this is the point: No one knows what actually happens. No one. Whenever a notable person, an acquaintance, an enemy dies, I always think: Now they know what we do not -- even if what they found was Nothing, which is a possibility. And, Detective Chole speaks for many: Sure hope that old lady's wrong...
It remains my belief that, because no one knows what happens, this Great Mystery is behind almost every aspect of human existence; we simply work hard to put it as far in the background as possible. Death is the reference point by which all other experiences are measured, considered and qualified.
None of this is news. I'm just saying the quiet part, the real quiet part, out loud.
But at some point, we have to stop thinking about death, and live our lives. Savor the truth that we are alive, for the moment, and hopefully in the moment. It may even be possible (as a cab driver in Germany once said to Kurt Vonnegut, "If the accident will") to accept and experience death as an answer, as adventure. It will be our last choice in living -- how to experience our end -- so; why not.
In the interim -- because we all have to play chess with Death on the beach, or give him a Melvin -- may your time be long, your shoe leather thick; your glass full and your bowels cooperative. Be well.
___________________________
MEHR, MIT SCHLAG: This add-on from December, 2019 seems appropriate. It's what we all hope is true, one way or another, anyway.
Actor Danny Aiello passed away, age 86. He appeared in a number of films, including one on my top ten list: Jacob's Ladder (1990).
Set in 1975 New York, Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins), divorced Vietnam vet with a PhD in Philosophy, is working in the Postal Service, and may (or may not) be slipping in and out of a series of flashbacks connected to Vietnam in 1971 [part of my time in the Southeast Asian barrel], and the accidental death of one of his three children (Macaulay Culkin, pre-Home Alone). He also begins seeing inexplicable things (demons, things out of a Lovecraft novel) in broad daylight. Reality appears to be shifting and he's frightened.
Singer has lower back issues, and sees a Chiropractor, Louis Denardo, played by Aiello ("...You look like an angel, Louie," Singer tells him, "Like a big cherub. Anyone ever tell you that?" "Yeah," says Louis. "You; every time you come in here").
At one point in the story, Singer is struck by a car on a New York street. His lower back seizes up, his wallet is stolen by a vagrant Exmass Santa; he's brought to a hospital that becomes progressively more nightmarish, a Hieronymus Bosch painting.
Louis shows up at the hospital ("What is this, the Middle Ages?" he yells at a nurse when he sees Singer in traction in a bed) and forcibly takes him out, back to his chiropractic office. He puts Jacob on his adjustment table and begins working on his back.
Singer tells Louis what he's been seeing, that the hospital was a vision of hell. "Ever read any Meister Eckhard?" Louis asks; Jacob says he hasn't, and Louis is surprised. "How'd you get your Doctorate without reading that guy?
"Eckhard saw hell, too," Louis continues. "Know what he said? He said the only part of you that burns in hell is the part that won't let go of your life. Your memories; your attachments; they burn them all away -- but they're not punishing you, he said; they're freeing your soul.
"So, the way he sees it -- if you're frightened of dying, and you're holding on -- you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace -- then the devils are really angels, freeing you, from the earth. It's just a matter of how you look at it. So, don't worry about it. Okay?"
Now he knows what we do not. It's a decent film. Aiello is good in it. Give it a whirl.
Brion James as Ben Kehoe, SFPD Detective in 48 Hrs (1982)
Brion James: Wake Up; Time To Die
I’m a devotee of character actors. Everyone remembers the stars, but their careers may not endure as long as those of the working stiffs who make up a supporting cast. Their paychecks may never reach six or seven figures; they may never get producer credits or points off the gross; but they manage to keep working steadily in a competitive business.
A good example is Blade Runner, Ridley Scott’s 1984 classic based on a Phillip K. Dick novel. Rutger Heuer and Harrison Ford were the stars; but the supporting actors immediately stand out in my memory: ‘Pris’ (Darryl Hanna), ‘Zora’ (Joanna Cassidy), ‘Dr. Eldon Tyrell’ (Joe Turkel, of whom more in a moment), or 'Graf' (Edward James Olmos); 'J.F. Sebastian' (William Sanderson) ... and ‘Leon’ –- Brion James, who played similar brutal, dim characters in other films.
At 6' 3", with his sharp, prominent nose, receding chin and hairline, James' 'Leon' reminded me of a character out of Deliverance pulled into Ridley Scott's 21st Century L.A.
The classic Leon line that my friends often repeated came when he encounters Harrison Ford, and has beaten him to near-unconsciousness. "Wake up!" Leon intones, slapping Ford's face. "Time to die!" (The other big favorite: "Whadya mean, I'm not helping??")
Clockwise from Left: Hannah, Cassidy, Olmos, Turkel
In 1992, I went out to the theater in Mill Valley to see Robert Altman’s dark satire on Hollywood morality, The Player; Tim Robbins is a hustler, part of a studio production unit, and within the first twenty minutes of the film has a meeting with the unit staff, and a parking-lot conversation with the studio executive who heads the group.
The exec was well-dressed, tanned, soft-spoken, reflective. Talking with Robbins, his physical gestures were measured and minimal; he was still. I thought that I recognized the actor playing him, but couldn’t quite make the connection – and when I finally realized it was Brion James, I was surprised: Holy criminey; Altman cast Leon -- “Wake up – time to die” -- as this character?
And as I watched, James did better than just a good job. His character in The Player wasn't large, but it was utterly removed from the relatively simple, biker-types caricatures he'd done before -- those roles had been mimicry, which is a 'surface' form of acting that doesn't really involve depth or real emotion. But in Altman's film, James did what only actors can do: He made me believe.
When any actor finds an opportunity to push the envelope of their abilities, create a memorable interpretation of a role, it’s like watching someone you know finally getting a break -– possibly because we need to believe that with perseverance, hard work, luck can operate that way in our own lives. Perhaps that’s an American trait; but I watched James play a creative manager trying to maintain his personal and professional balance in Hollywood, and thought, This guy might have something, and I hope this role gives him more chances to use it. Good for you, man; good for you.
Unfortunately, James also showed up in things like Chris Elliot's 1994 utterly boring, misbegotten mutant freakshow attempt to move from standup to stardom: Cabin Boy. It was all the more painful, because Elliot appeared to believe he was a whopping talent. The secondary line on the posters summed it up: He's Setting Sail On The High Seas -- Without A Rudder, A Compass, Or A Clue! Indeed.
James played "Big Teddy", one of the crewmembers on the fishing boat Elliot is apprenticed to.
Because he'd done better work, and this film was such dog shit, he must've been convinced Elliot was about to become a breakout star, or needed the money.
When we see actors and actresses that we know are capiable of better, stuck in a bad film (think Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffmann in 'Ishtar'), it's painful to watch. James followed with a better comic turn as Bruce Willis' former commanding officer, General Munro, in The Fifth Element.
(Photo: dvdbeaver.com. You will sing, 'O Canada', right now.)
In 1999, James died of heart attack at his home in Malibu. He had just given an interview weeks before, saying that he had finally begun to understand his craft, believed he was about to step completely out of the B-film genre and that his best roles were ahead. He was an ex-construction worker, bodybuilder and stuntman before taking a step into film -- and I miss not being able to see him continue to grow as an actor.
_______________________________________________
George Macready: The Only Completely Innocent Man In This Whole Affair
George Macready's Best Role: Gen. Mireau in Paths Of Glory (1957)
(Photo: Let's sing 'O Canada' once again)
Like James, George Macready took a roundabout way into acting. Born in 1899 into a family of some means in Providence, Rhode Island, Macready's great-grandfather was William Macready -- before the Civil War, one of America's two major Shakespearean actors; the other being John Wilkes Booth -- so a stage career was not the potential embarrassment for his family that it might have been for others.
Macready graduated with a degree in Literature from Brown University and began working as a reporter in 1921 for Hearst's Journal-American in New York City.
Beginning reporters work the police and theater beats, writing small reviews or crime reports. Eventually, he met Richard Boleslawski, a Polish director of (then) some note who suggested strongly that Macready try an acting career. He did, and it lasted over forty years.
"Hello, soldier -- Ready to kill more Germans?"
Macready, Wayne Morris and Ralph Meeker (far right)
(Photo: O Canada, we salute your mighty film websites!)
Macready was a tall, fair-haired man with a slim build and a suave, slightly raspy voice that conveyed menace, or an oily, sophisticated charm. In addition, he'd had a serious automobile accident in 1922 (well before the days of seat belts) which left him with a major facial scar; you can see it clearly in the photo above.
Macready thought Boleslawski's suggestion that he become an actor was a joke, because of that scar -- but the director assured him it could be a strength, along with his slightly imperious manner, and meant Macready would be chosen to play a Heavy more often than not.
And, he liked playing the Heavy -- you remember them, Macready once said in an interview with TV Guide in the 1960's; "Besides, everyone has a little evil in them."
Macready was one of the last generations of primarily stage-trained actors, before sound motion pictures became the dominant medium. His family history of a 'classic' theater tradition meant interpreting Shakespeare -- and his style was rooted in the "theatrical" voice and mannerisms of an earlier age.
He was never able to completely lose the late-19th Century tradition that a histrionic attitude was necessary in a large theater to project emotion, but which future generations of actors would rebel against as acting from the outside in, without real emotion.
I grew up watching hours of films on television, and I recognized any Macready character would be slightly overacted, almost laughably so -- and in college, I was able to impersonate his sandpapered, pompous voice fairly well (I still can). And some of his lines just lend themselves to that self-important, upper-crust society persona his voice
Macready and Virginia Leith, A Kiss Before Dying (1956)
He wasn't a bad, untalented or unperceptive actor (watch him as casino owner Ballin Mundson opposite Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford in Gilda [1946]). But as the Old Hollywood studios lost their power, and with the rise of Method Acting and a new generation of performers, George Macready's style made him America's Greatest Ham Actor -- greater, even, than William Shatner; and if you've watched any of the old 'Star Trek' series, or films that followed (or heard Shatner singing Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds), you know what I mean.
Once in a long while, his classic roots held him in good stead -- in 1953, when MGM wanted to do a film production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Macready played the Roman Tribune Marullus who actually opens the play, through a monologue about the state of Rome under a dictator -- Shakespeare's way of setting the place and tone for the audience. It's clear George had been trained well to interpret The Bard; much better than Brando, but not as good as James Mason (with whom Macready had acted with two years earlier).
James Mason as Rommel to Macready's Fritz Bayerlein
in The Desert Fox (1951) (Photo: imdb.com)
But, Macready wasn't entirely a stuffed-up character, and not off-screen; married, with a family (Macready's only son has been a long-time production executive at a major studio; his grandson is an Olympic gold medalist), he had met Vincent Price acting in a play in New York in the 1930's.
The two men both had an interest in art, and in 1940 opened a gallery -- Macready-Price eventually had a gallery in New York and L.A.; the Los Angeles branch operated into the early 1950's.
Both Price and Macready owned serious private collections of art, and sold to other actors who were also serious collectors -- Peter Lorre, Edward G. Robinson and agent-turned-actor Same Jaffe (who had been Humphrey Bogart's agent for years). Macready was also a serious Bridge player, at an almost professional level -- another echo of the moderately upper-class world of Providence he had grown up in.
(Price in 1962, with "Capriccio", an etching by Francisco Goya;
Macready was a good enough actor that when given a role with substance, he did rise above doing a caricature -- and again, only an actor can do that; it isn't a case of a blind squirrel occasionally finding the acorn. He had done well in Gilda, and it led William Wyler (director of the classic Best Years Of Our Lives) in 1951 to cast Macready in 'Detective Story': Kirk Douglas was the main character, an NYPD Detective whose black-and-white view of life takes a toll on his family and his police work. Macready played a suave hustler whom Douglas can't completely nail for a crime -- so, more from misplaced anger, he nearly beats Macready's character to death in an interrogation room.
Detective Kirk Douglas questions weasel George Macready (1951)
(Photo: "O Canada! Our home and native land...")
Six years later, when Stanley Kubrick was casting his second film, Paths Of Glory, he wanted Kirk Douglas for the role of a WWI French Army Colonel whose regiment is forced into a futile attack; and because the attack failed must put five, randomly-selected soldiers on trial to be shot for cowardice, sacrificed for the stupidity and ambition of the generals in command: The plan could not have been wrong, so naturally the troops were to blame.
Kirk Douglas as Colonel Dax, with Macready and Richard Anderson
at left
(later, Lee Major's boss on 'The 6 Million-Dollar Man')
(Photo: "From far and wide, O Canada! We stand on guard...")
Douglas suggested casting Macready as the Colonel's commander, General Mireau. Kubrick agreed ( he also cast a young actor in his first film as one of the condemned men -- Joe Turkel, eventually to play as Eldon Tyrell in Blade Runner, and once more for Kubrick as Lloyd the Bartender in The Shining).
Richard Anderson questions Joe Turkel at his courts-martial
Your money's no good here, Mr. Torrance. Turkel initially spent six years,
studying dance
for Broadway musicals, before attempting film work.
Macready did an excellent job; his style fit the character of a 1917 French General perfectly, but it wasn't a cartoon character. In the beginning of the film, Macready is approached by his own superior, General Broulard (one of Adolphe Monjiou's last film appearances), who presents him an impossible assault on an impregnable German trench system.
Macready says his men are tired, badly beaten up in another, prior assault that came to nothing; Monjiou hints darkly that if they're not up to it, well, they'll give the job to someone else. He'll be passed over for promotion -- and essentially calls him a coward. Eventually, Macready agrees.
The best fifteen minutes of his acting life.
(Photo: Canada's wild beaver is spectacular in every way.)
What makes the sequence work is Macready's uncharacteristically low-key acting: General Mireau cares about his soldiers -- but if he doesn't accept the 'challenge', it will harm his career, his honor -- and in front of Monjiou begins to convince himself the plan is possible... As with Brion James in The Player, Macready presents you with a human being, dealing with human emotion, within the limits of the film medium, and he makes you believe it.
And, like James, it's because this performance stood out so clearly as exceptional against his previous work -- which wasn't bad, just not as nuanced. It's the best moment of his career on film; it's in a Kubrick film-- which ensures that one way or another, George Macready will be around forever.
Color shot taken by a crewmember on the set of Kubrick's Paths;
Douglas, Monjiou and Macready (in red Kepis) and Anderson
Near the end of the movie, Douglas has discovered that Macready had given an illegal order during the abortive attack; he had revealed it to Macready's superior, Adolphe Monjiou, in an attempt to have his men's lives spared. Monjiou then springs this news after the men's execution over lunch with Douglas and Macready. There will have to be an inquiry, Monjiou says.
"So that's it," George sputters. "You're making me the goat -- the only completely innocent man in this whole affair!" Standing up from the table, he delivers Monjiou a withering look and another classic line: "I only have one, last thing to say to you, George -- the man you stabbed in the back is a soldier."
Macready worked steadily through the Fifties and Sixties, primarily in televison: Name a major series, and he was probably in it as a guest star. He also appeared in some definite turkeys: Macready's personal version of The Cabin Boy was an hour-long episode in the 1964 first season of The Outer limits, "The Production And Decay Of Strange Particles".
Macready Faces The Horror Of The Badly-Written Role
Macready was in classic form; not even Shatner ever equaled this over-the-top interpretation of a physicist encountering a rift in space and time. It didn't help that Macready, age 65, was already in ill-health, and played most of his role sitting down.
This specific episode of TOL is acknowledged to be among the worst ever presented (if not the Prize-Winner), and notable only because it was the first television appearance of a young actor who would have a later, larger impact on the Teevee and film medium, Leonard Nimoy.
(Additional fun factoid: A protective suit, worn by Macready in TOL, was used in the first actual Season-One episode of the original Star Trek, "The Man Trap").
In 1963, director John Frankenheimer wanted to make a film about an attempted military takeover of the United States, Seven Days In May, based on a popular novel by the Tom Clancy of the day, Eugene V. Burdick. A popular, Douglas-McArthur-type general (Burt Lancaster), incensed at a "criminally weak" President (Frederick March) negotiating a nuclear weapons reduction treaty with the Soviets, organizes a coup. Lancaster's aide (Douglas) slowly discovers the plot, and decides to alert the government; he's passed to the Secretary of State, played by Macready -- marking the third time that he and Douglas would work together.
Unfortunately, his lifelong cigarette habit resulted in Emphysema, and Macready's health deteriorated after the late 1960's. His last film appearance was in the 1970 Japanese-American co-production about the attack on Pearl Harbor, Tora! Tora! Tora!, with Macready playing another Secretary of State, Cordell Hull.
Macready already showing signs of ill-health in the late 1960's.
In late 1941, the Japanese government had told their ambassador in Washington, Nomura, to deliver a final note to the U.S. government, on December 7th but before the Pearl Harbor attack took place. However, there were delays; when Nomura arrived on December 7th to deliver it to Hull, the attack was already under way. Hull, shocked by what appeared to be Nomura's duplicity, leafed through the document, then turned to face the Ambassador.
The last real line he ever spoke as an actor in his forty-year career was classic Macready -- slightly overacted, filled with an old-world outrage of propriety which could only be approximated today: In all my fifty years of public service, I have never seen a document so crowded with infamous distortions -- on a scale so huge, that I never imagined that any government on this planet was capable of uttering them.
(Originally from November, 2019. As true today as it was in the Olden Days)
Vanished World: Ours Will Also Seem As Remote
While from a Proud Tower in the town / Death looked gigantically down
-- Edgar Allan Poe, "City In The Sea" (1845)
The ... great age of European civilization was an edifice of grandeur and passion, of riches and beauty and dark reliance... The Old World had much that has since been lost, whatever may have been gained. Looking back on it from 1915, Emile Verhaeren, the Belgian Socialist poet, dedicated his pages, “With emotion, to the man I used to be.”
-- Barbara Tuchman (1966)
______________________________
In The Proud Tower, popular historian Barbara Tuchman focused on describing Western culture in the decades leading up to the Great War -- a huge, red line of demarcation that finally separated the generations of the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries.
Her story is a chronicle of human folly (one of Tuchman's favorite themes), and because we know how the story will end, a leitmotif of nostalgia we sense in the background is really the collective despair of survivors who had lost everything familiar, an entire frame of reference for living.
Edward VII's Sendoff: Royal Procession Of Mourners, 1910
She opened her book with a spectacle: the funeral of King Edward VII of England, who had been on the throne for less than a decade after the death of his mother, Victoria. Tuchman described the brilliant funeral cortege, royal houses and empires in uniform. As Edward's coffin rolled along London streets, "The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock ... but on history's clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again." One of the last displays of presence and power of the Elite of the Gilded Age.
Tuchman closed the book with another funeral: this one for Jean Jaures, Socialist member of the French Chamber of Deputies, and a principal, seminal Left political agitator of the age. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary had been assassinated in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, and with the interwoven alliances in that era, major European powers began slow-walking into war.
Jaures Speaking At A Socialist Rally, Paris; 1914
A general war had been building for the better part of a decade, and the Socialists in Europe knew working people in all countries would be the disposable cannon-fodder for nationalist politicians and industrial plutocrats. Jaures believed only a pan-European worker's strike, united under the banner of each country's Socialist party, could prevent the continent from being dragged into a catastrophe.
Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia, whose assassin had killed the Archduke, then mobilized to invade. On July 30, Russia declared a general mobilization; Jaures was pushing to organize the strike action with other Socialist leaders. While eating at a Paris cafe on the night of July 31, he was assassinated by a right-wing nationalist who had been stalking him. Jaures died at roughly the same time Germany's ambassadors were delivering messages in European capitals, advising it had declared war on Russia.
The Great War had just begun as Jaures' funeral took place in Paris on August 4, 1914. As the funeral cortege moved through Paris streets, Tuchman described a muffled bell of Notre Dame tolling, thinking of a poem by Schiller: "I summon the living / I mourn the dead."
We know we're living in a time of extremity. Everyone is figuratively holding their breath, waiting for ... something. Tuchman's story led to a streetcorner in Sarajevo, and a few weeks in the high summer of 1914 -- and we read it with dread because we know where it ends. No one knows where our American story is leading.
Tuchman's story closed in 1914, 105 years ago. In 2019, there's no one reason to assume bad things are coming, in America -- because there seem to be an overwhelming preponderance of reasons. No one can be blamed for feeling the present moment is portentous, that we're approaching something, a Sarajevo moment, that will trigger a cataclysm. It's a continuous, negative feedback loop, difficult to shake off.
________________________________
America has ignored critical, obvious things for generations: contributing to climate disintegration; the inequality in wealth. We've ignored our real history of class, race and gender. We became an Empire, and behaved like one. We became a center to develop technology out of desire for novelty and profit, while reducing personal privacy and allowing our opinions, desires, habits to be harvested and exploited.
We ignored the rise of weapons availability and gun violence. We ignored evangelical christian religious extremism. We ignored right-wing domestic terrorists and white supremacists. We ignored a malignant right-wing media -- whose lies and distortion have created a separate, alternate reality, tailored for a specific segment of America's population.
Our great national weaknesses have been chronicled and discussed for decades. Then, we had 9/11, and the Forever War; the 2008 financial crisis; an internal struggle in the GOP (won by the Alt-Right); and a loss of focus or purpose by our political Left (ostensibly, the Democratic Party).
In the new Millennium, America became progressively more tribal, split along every fault line you can imagine -- Left vs. Right; Rich vs. Poor; Young vs. Old; Urban vs. Rural; christian vs. non-christian; White vs. Anybody Else; LGTBQ vs. homophobe; Men vs. Women. Into the mix, throw gun ownership, militias, private armies and private intelligence groups, and the daily drumbeat of lies, conspiracies, taunts and threats pouring out of the great echo chamber of the Right.
Never before have the 'deplorables', the Base, felt so empowered, so justified, so ready to take back what they have been told is theirs from a rag-tag crowd of liberals, hippies, immigrants, minorities, and devil-worshiping pagans.
And, I can't shake the feeling that there are too many 'responsible' conservatives who want some final, showdown battle with everything they hate in life, personified by liberals, women, and anyone different from them.
_________________________________
Sad Vlad's Pal.
Against that background, Trump was almost inevitable -- "I can drain the swamp"; the allegedly rich mogul with the blow-up doll trophy wife; America's Silvio Berlusconi. He is the personification of everything we've collectively ignored, the would-be Clown Emperor. Everything about his presidency is a symptom of the rot at the heart of America, and on constant display -- selfishness, arrogance; narcissism and misogyny; nationalism; religious extremism; racism and sexism.
If you were trying to find a political leader who, if elected, would blow America apart along those developed fault-lines -- someone who would subordinate the needs of a democratic nation-state to feed a bottomless, life-sucking pathological need -- Trump is precisely who you would pick.
__________________________________
I don't have any great expectations for the impeachment process. The hearings are important, historic. There will be moments everyone will recall with relish or anger. Generations will remember them, as Watergate is remembered. From a legal perspective, and for the historical record, they're essential.
Whether a majority of Americans understand this impeachment is about limits of Executive authority is an open question. The GOP will continue to push a conspiracy-fueled, barely coherent defense of Trump, designed to confuse and obfuscate, because that's what liars do.
Another part of that defense is the yet-to-be-released Barr report, which will attack America's intelligence agencies and federal law enforcement, claiming to document a titanic conspiracy by The Deep State to thwart a victorious, glorious Trump presidency. It's a lie, of course; a projection of Trump's distorted interior landscape, tailored by Barr and others to please and curry favor with The Leader -- and on that basis alone, it'll be astounding.
Barr intends people will go to jail because of The Leader's whims; that one cannot act against The Leader, lest they suffer. And Republicans in Congress, the huge megaphone of right-wing media, are eager to dominate any impeachment coverage with a constant smoke screen of lies.
The GOP will not walk away from Trump. He is their chance to roll back generations of Liberal political change, social programs, and legal precedents. That great work, blessed by evangelical pastors, is more important than anything. But they've gone all-in.
Last night on Amanpour & Co., journalists Jeff Greenfield of Politico and Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame were asked about the current impeachment hearings, compared with those 46 years ago. Greenfield noted Americans seemed to be more involved and informed about the issues at stake, during Watergate -- and that they seemed to understand readily how Nixon had abused his office. More of an effort will be needed to 'sell' impeachment to Americans in 2019, Greenfield thought.
_____________________________________
I'm certain the hearings will lead to Articles of Impeachment in the Democratically-controlled House, but (my opinion) they will die in the Senate -- probably after an abbreviated trial; McConnell has already indicated what the result will be. After, there will be protests and civil disobedience (watch carefully how Trump and the government he owns will respond, as a preview of what may happen after the 2020 election).
Then, we'll head to the election. If the Republican attempts to confuse and obfuscate are successful; if the Democrats can't coalesce, and field a strong candidate; if our voting isn't secure against tampering; if voter suppression in key districts is successful... short of an act of god, America could end up with another 1,640 Days Of Trump.
There won't be a second attempt at Impeachment; the majority of Americans will be stunned, dispirited, and "sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science." (Winston Churchill; June, 1940)
I'm also reminded of a quote by lawyer and philosopher, Joseph De Maistre, in 1811: "In a democracy, people get the leaders they deserve."
____________________________________
Let's put on our tinfoil hats... Trump loses, and refuses to concede, saying the results are "fake news". He asks "very good people" to bring their guns and come to Washington DC to "protect your president". The result would look very much like the confusion in a banana, or central African, republic as the government disintegrates.
Another possibility: if Trump loses the 2020 election and is replaced by a Democrat, the current "Cold Civil War" in America could turn hot: asymmetrical warfare by rightist, white supremacist militias demanding -- something -- would likewise end in a state of emergency, a quasi-guerrilla war, endless paranoia and heightened surveillance.
If these circumstances become dire enough, other actors may step in. The military is one possibility, but more likely is a cabal of 'christians', backed by elements of a private corporate militia, might decide that god has called them to take control of America, end the sin, and bring the nation to His judgement and the path of righteousness. These actors are the best organized, best resourced group to commit treason on the scale necessary to succeed -- and, they believe they answer only to god.
There are scenarios, of course, where the Good Guys win, and America appears to have been 'saved'. Unfortunately, Fox and the rest of the Rightist echo chamber will continue pumping sewage; a Trump loss will make 'The Base' apoplectic, and right-wing violence will increase.
Any Left political leader elected to the Presidency will find it hard to govern in as fractured a nation as America is in the second decade of the 21st century.
_________________________________
Before you completely laugh off the possibility of a Republic of Gilead option for America's future, please consider these two news items:
1.) The Ohio State Legislature has passed House Bill 164, the “Student Religious Liberties Act.” Under this law, students can’t be penalized if their work is scientifically inaccurate, as long as their reasoning is based on their religious beliefs.
If a public school student turns in a class assignment stating the earth is only 10,000 years old, if it's based on their religious belief, the student cannot be given a failing grade for the question.
The Bill also requires:
Public schools to give students the same access to facilities as provided to secular groups, if they wish to meet for religious expression;
Removing a provision that allows school districts to limit religious expression to lunch periods or other non-instructional times;
Allowing students to engage in religious expression before, during and after school hours to the same extent as any student in secular activities or expression;
Prohibiting schools from restricting a student from engaging in religious expression in homework, artwork or other assignments.
2.) Former Time and Los Angeles Times journalist Joel Stein appeared on the PBS News Hour on Thursday, November 14, to discuss his new book, "In Defense Of Elitism".
Stein spoke about visiting the town of Miami, Texas, and his observations that Americans there were not uninformed or ignorant, but very determined that their point of view was true and correct:
...They [residents of Miami, Texas] were very white, and they were very christian.... And their anger about what is going on was different from what I thought it would be. And I found out that what they're upset about is, they feel really discriminated against. These are the people that, if you asked, 'are christians discriminated against more than black people', they will say yes.
...So what they have noticed is that white christians have less power than they did 10, 20, 30 years ago. And they're panicked about that kind of change. ...These people are voting for what they want for the country. I think it's a dangerous vision they have, in my opinion, but it's not ignorant.
Before Nine borrows freely from the panoply of images and writing that appear on the Intertubes. As a Dog, I can't really afford usage fees for some of this material -- however, I believe it's not only fair but important to be recognized for your work.
As a result, with images, Before Nine will provide attributions for the photographer and or news agencies who distributed them, where possible (However, at times even the most diligent search of Blogtopia does not yield this information). The same for excerpts of written material, where the names of authors will be listed, and links provided.
If you feel that there has somehow been unfair use of your photograph(s) or writing; or, if you're just thin-skinned and have hurt Fee-Fees that an awful anonymous Blogger (and masquerading as a Dog!) has been mean to you, we'll be happy to consider your Request / Veiled Sociopathic Threat to remove them, and not use additional material of yours in future.
If I'm not happy about it, I'll bite you and pee on your leg.
WHAT'S IN HERE
Ingredients: ALL NATURAL. Make absolutely certain your sense of humor is fully engaged prior to using Before Nine. I am not responsible for your level of consciousness or documented ability to subjectively perceive stuff. Got that? Swell. Comfy now? Want a treat? A Juice Box? A cigarette? Well okay then.
