Your Big Box Of Terror Weekend

 Bark Bark Bark Bark

Yet Another Long Howl

Recent conversations with friends, with The Last Of The Old Unit, over the past few weeks: we talked about Covid (Hey! Remember that? Still the 3rd-highest cause of death in America?). We talked about the Trump-time, and everything that's happened since.

We admitted feeling an uneasy sense that The World had changed, fundamentally, in a way we can't fully grasp or articulate. Everything around us has shifted, slightly -- like a kid's party game, where you're given ten seconds to look at items on a table. Then, you close your eyes -- and when you open them, you have to guess which items have been removed.

The Oldest Friend said: "It's like I went to bed one night, and woke up in an alternate universe that was just a little different than the one I went to sleep in. Like discovering there had never been Mars Bars. Or the original 'Star Trek' on TV ran for three seasons, not two. 'Stranger in a strange land' stuff.

"That's completely subjective, I know," she said, "but that feeling never completely goes away."

All of the people I spoke with defined that feeling with variations -- but there was common agreement that we perceived some difference between ourselves and The World that hadn't existed before -- which led us to feel mildly alienated from that world.

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When we said "The World", we didn't mean the planet, Gaia; Our Big Ecosystem. Climate deterioration aside, the Natural World seems to be abiding. 

'The World' we referred to is built out of social fabric, stretched on a framework of collective relationships, stitched together by the cultural Ways our society accepts and agrees to in our relations with each other. It was something about that world we felt, suddenly, out of place.

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The Girl Who Refused To Be Mrs. Mongo said it reminded her of the Cold War -- what it meant to live in the knowledge that nuclear war was possible (Hey! Know what? It still is). It was an understanding we kept in the basement of our consciousness, jammed in a dark corner, along with the box that has the big, yellow label with red lettering -- Terror: Or, we are Mortal; Death is Coming; Death Is Mystery.

There were times in the long years we've walked when we woke up in the middle of the night, thinking what if the sirens went off? But now the possibility of an apocalyptic event is replaced with... mass gun deaths. Some new repression by the Motherfucking Cletuses, whom no one can seem to stop. 

Nearly every morning, we get up and wonder what new outrage has been committed, what new boundary was crossed, while we slept. This was a singular feature of the Trump-time; now we come awake expecting bad news.

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Please understand: members of The Last Of The Old Unit, including me, have experienced Bad News. Every time there's a bulletin, a new "mass casualty 'event'," we have a moment of recognition. We know with almost cellular-level certainty what that experience is. And something still grips us after fifty-five fucking years, and for three seconds or three hours, we're right back in it.

We'd already experienced dislocation from reality (there was a reason people used the phrase "Back in the World" to describe a non-war zone environment) and thought, Thank Christ That Shit is Over. Except it's not.

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Another friend noted, "The Republicans are the new Cold War" -- meaning, like that time in our collective past, they have become symbols and avatars of that dark corner in our basements. Their collective antics are a reminder: The World, that social fabric, is just a construct and the control we think we have over it is an illusion.

Trump, DeSantis, Sarah-Huckafuckle; the lot of them, are the embodiment of malevolent unpredictability. They can destroy the World, the social fabric we participate in, as well as any ICBM with a five-pattern spread of MIRVed warheads.

As a 76-year-old, Trump will not live forever. Maybe he realizes this; maybe not. Spasmodically, he acts out and splatters America with his own feces, then revels in the disgust he provokes, the impotent anger of others -- all to feed an endless hunger for validation, and avoid the Big Box Of Terror at the center of his own being.

And there are those pending legal issues -- which, bizarrely, don't seem to slow him down. They feed the chaos engine, the endless urge at the heart of America's political and cultural Right -- to burn everything the fuck down.

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So I wake up in the 2:30AM, sometimes with the Terror, sometimes not. I remind myself that we're animals, hard-wired to survive -- and self-conscious animals, who understand that our lives are finite. Provided the right stimulus, we hit the Fight-Or-Flight wall.  

Our World -- the actual one around us; and the perceived one in our heads -- is changing.  It has always been unpredictable in its details -- but not in our beginnings, rites of passage, ecstasies and sorrows, and our end. No one alive can say why we came to be or where we're going -- but we demand our Reason Why, even if we'll never receive it.

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I remind myself: all of our Details are in The Stories. It's why Gilgamesh. It's why Homer and Herodotus, Chaucer and Pope; Dickens and Melville. It's why statuary and panel and canvas and paper, camera, movement and words on a Stage. It's why music from Cantos to Paart, Bach to Ravel, Joplin to Pere Ubu -- and all of it, the virtuous effort of telling a Story of What Happened To Us When We Went Through It. All of our details will disappear. Only the Stories remain.

I considered this, and because I'm only a Dog and not a philosopher, passed my observation on to friends in the version used at the Soul Of America: Be Kind, Motherfuckers.

We all pretty much agreed we could get behind that.

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Additional Bark Bark Bark Bark

I found Peter Fritzsche's 2016 book, "An Iron Wind: Europe Under Hitler", browsing at a bookshop, I was idly looking for resonances with the perspective that we're living in a country invaded by some alien presence and ideology.

I do actually know better. My life in America is not even remotely similar to the European experience between 1939 and 1945. As swinish, bloated and mendacious as the Rethugs are, they aren't foreign invaders. They don't speak a different language. And while they can be proto-fascists, they aren't nazis. I call them that all the time in the Twitterverse, but: I actually do know better. 

Nazis were members of the National Socialist Party, which existed from 1919 until the Spring of 1945, when it was put out of business at the cost of tens of millions of lives. The nazis committed a specific set of crimes between 1933 and 45. Calling DeSantis or Gosar or Cruz a nazi may make me feel better for ten seconds, but it cheapens the experience of survivors -- of the Occupation, and of the genocide of the Holocaust, which the nazis perpetrated, supported, made manifest.

I'd like to say Republican governments in Florida, Arkansas, Texas; Ohio, Montana, Indiana, Illinois, Wyoming; Idaho; North and South Carolina; Kansas; Kentucky, Tennessee; Mississippi and Alabama; Georgia and Louisiana, don't ban abortion, demand to check children's genitals; censor and ban books; demand prayer and 'christian' religious instruction are included in secondary school education; demonize LGBTQ+ persons, and Persons Of Color, and Women and Liberals and Immigrants. But they do these things, and more. 

As David Neiwert noted recently on Twitter, the political and cultural Right didn't stop with January 6. They're trying a slow-motion coup -- at County and State levels, introducing laws to force their vision and belief on America. The trick is getting Americans to admit to themselves that it's happening, 

Like the nazis, America's political and cultural Right is backing up its Thou Shalt Not rhetoric with laws -- fines, arrest; prison. Whole classes of people are being identified as the enemy. You know what comes next, because these Cletus Thugs certainly do.

And while these Thugs are not nazis, they do treat others like the nazis would have done. They'd just gotten started, during the Trump-time. And they intend to burn it all the fuck down.

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In the 1970's in Europe, I noticed (with surprising regularity) something rarely seen in America -- it seemed a significant percentage of adults in their late forties to early sixties had serious facial scars, eye patches or glasses with one darkened lens; crutches, missing limbs, fingers, ears.

At a bus stop on a warm morning in southwestern Germany, a man stood waiting at a streetcar stop, wearing a Tyroler hat, topcoat and gloves. His face was a smooth mask of shiny, oddly pink skin, which made discerning his age difficult. Plainly, he'd suffered serious burns -- except around the eyes, where a pilot or air crewman would have worn a set of goggles.

I had been staring; the man looked over at me, took in my non-European appearance and clothing, and said, "Good morning," in English. I nodded back, said nothing, and so missed the opportunity for an insightful conversation with someone who at the least had an interesting personal story. He also might have confirmed what I was already guessing: that the European experience of the Second World War seared everyone by degrees, civilian and military, the persecutors and persecuted, right down to their souls.

Those who weren't killed in occupied Europe continued to experience degrees of cruelty, humiliation, betrayal, anxiety and uncertainty, at levels that would have been unthinkable before 1933 -- and all because it became acceptable and popular in Germany to believe ideas which first became policy, and then law. 

Europeans woke up one morning and the world was... different. A new set of outrages, every day, week, month. And while they could hope for Liberation, for more than four years -- one thousand, five hundred and fifty days -- there was no guarantee it would happen. And for those under occupation, each of those days had to be lived, experienced; suffered.

It isn't often mentioned, but the Germans, whether they recognized it or not, had their very souls disfigured by the experience of Hitler and the pack of animals around him. They became something else, for over twelve years: 4,500 days. And even after the war ended.

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One aspect of the Holocaust is as a teaching moment for humanity about intolerance and hate, and where it can lead. Fritzsche's book shows clearly what the power of belief can do to individuals, and groups, in even more detail than any other look at the period I've seen -- something I didn't think was possible. 

Using only contemporary documents and writings, he shows how The Leader in an authoritarian system provides permission to his followers for accepting astonishing levels of violence (as well as committing it), and how The Leader becomes a psychological scapegoat for that violence if it should it all go bad later. 

America's history has already burned us, as Europe's before WWII had done to its own cultures and societies. We aren't living in an occupied country, but we are changing (“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig... but already it was impossible to say which was which”).

We run the risk of being seared down to our souls (as Europeans were, over twelve years of nazism) by whatever seems to be coming.  I'm not sure what it will feel like to live here, when America gets to wherever we're headed.

We can try to be kind, first; perhaps that's all we can do. Perhaps it's just an act of resistance, in the end.

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Welcome To Your Locked In Third-Class Thursday

 No One Is Coming To Put Out This Fire

A Short Howl

... he decided that.. he didn't want to leave [a false] passport in his apartment. .. So he opened an account... using the passport for identification, at a Banque du Nord office on the Boulevard Haussmann, then rented a safe deposit box for the passport itself. Three days later he returned... and put an envelope holding twelve thousand Francs on top of the passport. What are you doing? he asked himself. But he didn't really know; he only knew that he was uncomfortable, in some not very definable way ... Somewhere, something was warning him... Hide money, something told him. Arm yourself, said the same voice, a few nights later. But that... he did not do.

          -- "Alan Furst, "Dark Star" (1991)

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It all feels inexorable. 

Down in Third Class, we hear and sense a commotion building on decks above us; the liner is slowing down. Something doesn't feel right. The passenger line has provided a few musical instruments, a few board games like Anchor and Crown to keep us occupied; they turn a blind eye to a bit of gambling. They even gave us a tot of Rum - the good kind, nearly like molasses. Something doesn't feel right, but we keep smiling; let's have more music. Don't spoil the party for others.

And when our concertinas and fiddles pause and the laughter stops: faintly and far above us the ship's orchestra is playing. We can feel the liner has stopped. Then, we hear a series of scraping rattles, like blind curses, as gates to the gangways going up to Second Class and the Boat Decks are pulled out, and locked. 

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Or: From the Salon windows of the passenger gondola, we look out over the plains of New Jersey, all muted mauve greys and purples at sunset, rain clouds dimpling on the horizon in the fading light. We hear ropes uncoiling to slide out of the nose of the airship as we gently make for the mooring mast. There's another low sigh of noise, like a breath, like acceptance or resignation, as water ballast is released.

The Zeppelin company provides complimentary champagne -- a toast; we've crossed the Atlantic! We're all upper- and upper-middle class, highly-paid chroniclers and technicians (passage to America on a Zep in 1937 cost $450 -- almost $10,000 in 2023 USD). The long moment keeps uncoiling, poised between heaven and earth, as in a dream -- when you think you feel the Zeppelin's airframe jolt, just perceptibly, once, like something trying to get your attention.

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With our Planet, our shared climate; our politics (willed helplessness or vicious cruelty); our arts and culture (expressions of existential fear and loathing, and 'christian' mania) ... in almost every expression of human behavior, signs of something rising keep getting louder.  It takes more energy and effort to block it out. My personal lot here in America is better than most, less than some.

Outside America, things are more elemental: I listen to the BBC for a time most mornings, and followed reports made by journalists on scene of the effects of a pointless war between the egos of two Sudanese generals. "I'm looking at video from downtown, central Khartoum," one reporter noted, "and can see a large, modern building. It's the National Bank of Sudan, and it's burning. 

"The remarkable thing," he continued, "is that it's absolutely silent. We can hear gunfire, but otherwise, there are no sirens, no fire trucks, no ambulances. No one is coming to put out this fire."

Obligatory Photo Of Overly Familiar Cute Dog

In Middle Of Blog Rant

And no matter what you think about the war in Ukraine, it is brutal, and it has gone on for over 450 days. The damage is generational: that's how bad it is -- and you could use much the same language to describe events of the past decade in Yemen, Somalia, Syria; Lebanon. 

In Gaza, the endless cycle of repression and revenge and counter-revenge goes on without letup or pity. And, Israelis turned out in tens of thousands to protest a government of malicious ego and religious arrogance, but it made no difference: the Malignant narcissist wins again. I suspect this will become the norm in countries like Israel, Hungary... and eventually France, Austria, America. 

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On the weekend, I looked up from doing another sort of writing and saw, through my living room window, a woman standing at the curb across the street, having an animated conversation with someone on her cell phone. She appeared in her early twenties, and I wondered what her experience of living was like -- prejudices, desires, expectations -- and what her future would look like in another fifty years, when she is as old as I am now. If she lives that long.

I have two degrees in History but have never been good at being a Futurist, at prognostication. That takes a completely different kind of intellect than I possess. Mostly, I bark at what I see, and consider a possible future -- and bark and bark. Few people listen, and that's just how it is.

I don't know what it's going to be like. I only know that two things I keep thinking are absolutely true: The current situation[s] cannot continue, and This cannot end well.

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MEHR, MIT EIN RÜCKBLICK: Much of what I've written since starting this Blog in 2008 has been an extended complaint about living in an absurd, oft-times shabby, and incomprehensible universe. Occasionally it's produced something profound in a minor-key way, or funny, but principally it's just been an extension of that Dog in the neighborhood who barks, and Why Can't His Owners Shut Him The Fuck Up.

This post could have been written at any time during the past two decades and still have seemed relevant. That's both sad ( gosh, Slothrop; you're stuck in a rut, seems to me) and representative of the times we currently live in: All this same shit has been going on at least that long, and what does that tell you?

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MEHR, MIT EIN UNERWARTETER AUSRUF SEINER MAJESTÄT:

CHOOK:  Fuck's sake, Mate; fuckin' Bollocks; this is -- I shouldn't have to fuckin' do this shit, Mate; I'm the King --  an' what the fuck is this 'ere?? Can you just fuckin' move this out the way??  Fuckin' 'ell, Mate; bein' King is Bollocks, I'm fuckin' done with this shit!"

Wouldn't it be Loverly.

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Actors We Like: Brion James (1945-1999); George Macready (1899-1973)

 

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

   

"I mean, you're not helping, Leon. Why is that?"

(Photos: The always excellent dvdbeaver.com) 

 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. 

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  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; 

Photo via FutureChimp)

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

(Photo via Kubrick En Castellano)

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.

We miss you too, George.

 John Lennon

The Soul Of America reminds me to mention this, as I do, twice each year:

December, 1980 / Speak, Memory:  One of the two arrests we made that day hadn't gone well. After putting the car in the basement garage at the Federal Building, I'd walked up the underground ramp to the street, intending to buy my second pack of Marlboros of the day from the liquor store up the next block. Stepping inside, I looked down at a stack of the early edition of a paper which isn't even around any longer, lying on the counter below the cash register with a banner headline in 48-point type: JOHN LENNON SLAIN.  Fuck; I thought, and then said it out loud.  

If we remember today, we have to remember the birthday without the other day.  So: Absent Friends. Sail On, John.

_______________________________

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup,
They slither while they pass; they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open mind,
Possessing and caressing me
Jai guru de va om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world

Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes,
That call me on and on across the universe;
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box
They tumble blindly as they make their way,
Across the universe
Jai guru de va om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.

Sounds of laughter shades of earth are ringing
Through my open views; inviting and inciting me
Limitless undying love which shines around me
Like a million suns; it calls me on and on
Across the universe
Jai guru de va om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world...

Across The Universe (Lennon / McCartney, 1969)

---

We don't care what flag you're waving,
We don't even want to know your name,
We don't care where you're from or where you're going,
All we know is that you came;

You're making all our decisions,
We have just one request of you,
That while you're thinking things over,
Here's something you just better do:

Free the people, now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now.
Free the people, now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now.

Well we were caught with our hands in the air,
Don't despair paranoia is everywhere,
We can shake it with love when we're scared,
So let's shout it aloud like a prayer:

Free the people, now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now.
Free the people now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now

We understand your paranoia,
But we don't want to play your game;
You think you're cool and know what you are doing,
666 is your name;
So while your jerking off each other,
You better bear this thought in mind:
Your time is up you better know it,
But maybe you don't read the signs

Free the people now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now.
Free the people now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now.

Well you were caught with your hands in the kill,
And you still got to swallow your pill,
As you slip and you slide down the hill,
On the blood of the people you killed

Stop the killing now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now.
Stop the killing now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now.
Free the people now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now...

Bring On The Lucie (Freda People) (John Lennon, 1973)

---

Absent Friends

 You Know Who They Are

"We have done so much with so little for so long that we could do anything with nothing forever".

Mozart: Concerto For Clarinet and Orchestra; 2nd Movement, Adiago

___________________________

Across The River And Into The Trees

Don't Say You Didn't See This Coming

Another Long Howl

Depending on which media 'outlets' or polls you follow, the Democratic party will either win, and the American form of democracy will be preserved -- or, the political and cultural Right will win, and that will be the end of The American Experiment.

The Democratic party is the best we've got. Some in the party don't believe its stated policies go far enough to realize a more equitable future; to prepare for the challenges of climate deterioration, and competition with an authoritarian China and Russia. They favor restructuring national priorities, continuing the spirit of The New Deal.

The Republican party claims to be the same GOP that's existed for over 160 years: The party of Lincoln; of fiscal sobriety and small government. That's a lie. It belongs to Trump. 

The GOP is dressed in a Sturmabteilung brownshirt; it struts and marches. The Party says When (not If) it takes back what was rightfully stolen from it, it will impeach Biden, throw out the January 6th Committee and replace it with another to "investigate the radical Democrats". It will Own The Libs, codify law making abortion illegal in all states, and end the farce of Social Security and Medicare.

The Ukrainians will have to get used to being part of Putinland. NATO will just have to get along without us. And at home there will be more god, and less godlessness, in society -- oh, the Party will see to that.

And above it all -- various investigations against him stymied or quashed -- there will be the triumphant return of The Leader in 2024, as he waddles back into the White House, before starting his Revenge Tour of America, basking in the adulation of thousands at his rallies -- as if they were tent-revival meetings for the Cult of Trump.

______________________

Michael Moore says he believes there will be a Blue Tsunami on election day, one that hasn't been detected by the pollsters, just as his prediction of Trump's apotheosis was ignored by the professional pollsters in 2016.  Meanwhile, he complains, Democratic campaigning is tepid, uninspiring, encouraging Democrats "to believe liberals are losers."

It’s very disheartening ... Democratic party consultants are feeding lines that are so lame and weak. They don’t go for the jugular like a Republican would. It doesn’t inspire people... We stand here on the precipice of a very important election and our greatest enemy could be the Democratic party itself.

And, meanwhile, Bill Maher (whose libertarianism I don't particularly like) says correctly that Democracy is on the ballot, and predicts "it's going to lose". 

Ben Franklin said our country was a "Republic, if you can keep it." Well, we can’t, and unless a miracle happens on Tuesday, we didn’t. Democracy is on the ballot, and unfortunately, it’s going to lose. And once it’s gone, it’s gone.

So here's what's going to happen: Republicans are going to take control of Congress, and ... begin impeaching Biden and never stop... it won't matter and it won't make sense -- but Biden will be a crippled duck in 2024 when he goes up against the Trump - Kari Lake ticket.

And even if Trump loses -- it doesn't matter: On Inauguration Day 2025, he's going to show up... and this time he's going to have the army of election deniers behind him that's being elected in... days. 

This really is the crossing-the-Rubicon moment... it's how countries slide into authoritarianism --not with tanks in the streets, but by electing the people who have no intention of giving [up power]...  Hitler was elected. So was Mussolini; Putin; Erdogan; Orban. This is the, 'it can't happen to us" moment that's happening to us, right now.

______________________

A deranged man broke into the home of Nancy Pelosi and attacked her husband with a hammer, demanding, "Where's Nancy?" The man had two hammers, zip-ties, and told police he had committed the break-in and assault because he was "fighting against tyranny".

[He stated his] intention was to find Speaker Pelosi at the home and take her hostage. He planned to have a conversation with her, claiming that if she told him "the truth" he would let her go. If she "lied," in his eyes, he planned to break her kneecaps. He also indicated that he did not expect her to tell the "truth," further suggesting his hope to commit violence during the incident.

Less than an hour after the attack was reported, Rethugs were broadcasting that the man was a male prostitute Paul Pelosi had picked up.  It was a "tryst" gone wrong.  Elon Musk ("world's richest man", bloated Owner of a shiny, newly-acquired toy, Twitter) helped broadcast it under the guise of "free speech", then deleted the post -- but, too late. 

No matter that it was a lie -- the Rethugs amplified and regurgitated it. The Murdochs broadcast it -- and when Fox says something, 40% of American adults automatically snap-to and believe. Marjorie Taylor-Green and Lauren Boebert claimed Pelosi brought the attack on himself. It was his fault -- but the real victims in all this were ... America's patriots; the Trumpist Right.

A few in the GOP condemned "the violence in our culture", then blamed Dems for being "pro-crime" -- again: Pelosi brought that head trauma upon himself.  Some claimed the assailant was part of Antifa. But among most of the Rethug members of Congress, there was silence. No one said a word.

The Thugs couldn't quite bring themselves to say any politically-motivated violence was unacceptable. That there were red lines in American society about politics that couldn't be crossed. They might have, fifteen or twenty years ago. But not in 2022. 

We're going into this election with the Right giving its cult members a clear signal -- political intimidation through violence, even assassination, is the spirit of the future. Attempting to kill the Libs isn't fully permissible, yet -- but the fact that the attack happened, and most Republicans said nothing, should be a massive wake-up call. But it doesn't appear to be. 

_______________________

Within three days, we'll find out whether America's democratic experiment is on its deathbed; whether the country is being delivered further into the hands of narcissistic monsters and child molesters who will make a mockery out of American government. We'll think we've been fucked by a train.

I don't know whether that will happen. But I know History -- particularly the inter-war years in Europe: the rise of Italian fascism; nazism; end of the Weimar Republic and everything that followed. 

The stakes are exactly as described by Maher and others. I am looking at the cards on the table and feeling a cold sense of anticipatory dread: We go this way, we die. Period. It is as clear as anything I've ever felt. Beyond voting, I am helpless to do anything to affect the outcome.

This is how history works at the level of a citizen in a participatory democracy whose future is uncertain.

________________________

Imagine a world without America. We have so many crimes and shortcomings to answer for as a society that many might say, yeah, right; bring it on. Whatever comes must be better than the lies, the greed, the inequality of this faux Democracy we live under. 

But would it really? The vacuum produced by our withdrawing from the world stage would mean other countries will assert their authoritarian leadership. I know some Marxists who say, good; a dose of what the CCP is doing would be a step toward a better world for the greatest number of people.

I disagree, for one reason: Under the CCP or Russian Federation (and theocratic governments, like Iran, or Afghanistan), artists can't create certain images. Writers can't express certain thoughts. Nor can Filmmakers, Playwrights, Musicians.  Any system which says You Cannot is inherently despotic -- and despotic systems are always maintained by the threat of death. 

That threat sits in the shadows of every demand for obedience such systems make on their citizens -- Obey, Or Else. Governments imprisoning and murdering persons for what is in their minds and hearts, for having the ability to express it creatively, is one of the great crimes of this or any other period in history. 

You can argue that a citizen of America is complicit in great crimes; that the 'Obey' is implicit in our system; I won't argue. But it's ironic that such a truth goes hand-in-hand with (even our level of) individual rights and liberties in the United States of America, today, November 6, 2022. 

I'd like to be positive. Maybe America will vote for sanity -- that we'll collectively dodge a bullet, be delivered from the repercussions of slavery, genocide; racism; greed, and lies.

But maybe not.  No one can say we didn't see it coming.

________________________

Kleiner Mann, Was Nun

 Misery Does Not Require Acts, Only Conditions

(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."

Four years, three months, and the deaths of ~10,000,000 soldiers and civilians later, the war ended.

________________________________

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.

___________________________________

Reprint Heaven, Forever: John Lennon

 John Lennon: October 9, 1940

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup,
They slither while they pass; they slip away, across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open mind,
Possessing and caressing me
Jai guru de va om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world

Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes,
That call me on and on, across the universe;
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box
They tumble blindly as they make their way,
Across the universe
Jai guru de va om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.

Sounds of laughter shades of earth are ringing
Through my open views; inviting and inciting me
Limitless undying love which shines around me
Like a million suns; it calls me on and on
Across the universe
Jai guru de va om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world...

Across The Universe (Lennon / McCartney, 1969)

---

We don't care what flag you're waving,
We don't even want to know your name,
We don't care where you're from or where you're going,
All we know is that you came;

You're making all our decisions,
We have just one request of you,
That while you're thinking things over,
Here's something you just better do:

Free the people, now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now.
Free the people, now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now.

Well we were caught with our hands in the air,
Don't despair paranoia is everywhere,
We can shake it with love when we're scared,
So let's shout it aloud like a prayer:

Free the people, now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now.
Free the people now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now

We understand your paranoia,
But we don't want to play your game;
You think you're cool and know what you are doing,
666 is your name;
So while your jerking off each other,
You better bear this thought in mind:
Your time is up you better know it,
But maybe you don't read the signs

Free the people now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now.
Free the people now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now.

Well you were caught with your hands in the kill,
And you still got to swallow your pill,
As you slip and you slide down the hill,
On the blood of the people you killed

Stop the killing now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now.
Stop the killing now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now.
Free the people now,
Do it do it do it do it do it now...

Bring On The Lucie (Freda People) (John Lennon, 1973)

---

The Soul Of America reminds me.

I am also reminded to remember, remember, the 8th of December.

Something About Him Was Always A Kick-Out-The-Jambs,
Saturday-Night's-All-Right-For-Fighting Liverpudlian Rebel

Speak, Memory: One of the two arrests we made that day hadn't gone well. After putting the car in the basement garage at the Federal Building, I'd walked up the underground ramp to the street, intending to buy my second pack of Marlboros of the day from the liquor store up the next block. Stepping inside, I looked down at a stack of the early edition of a paper which isn't even around any longer, lying on the counter below the cash register with a banner headline in 48-point type: JOHN LENNON SLAIN.  Fuck; I thought, and then said it out loud.  

Hard to remember the birthday without the other day.  So: Absent Friends. Happy Birthday, John.

_______________________________