Herman, Herman, Herman

Oh, Hermie, Baby.  Give it up. You went about this all wrong.  You should have put on your pimp hat and shiny suit and trotted out all your stable of ladies – those you harassed and now your long-time mistress. 

Go ahead.  Play the race card.  Be bold.  Claim them all as your Ladies.  Then tell your rich white Republican pals that they wouldn’t understand, it’s a Black Thing.

Instead, you wimped out.  Denied everything then grabbed the Wussy White Pol’s classic cop out – “If I do quit, it’ll be . . . for the sake of my family.”

For the sake of your family?  Oh, pluuueeeze.  Your wife should have handed you a slice of pizza and told you to “eat your vegetable,” then booted your sorry behind out the door years ago.

Now, Shoo.  Go away.  Thank you.

Speaking of Running 

Run – do not walk or saunter – run down to Santa Maria to the John Hancock College’s Marian Theatre for PCPA’s new production of “A Christmas Carol.” 

The play, with Music and lyrics by David De Berry, was directed by Mark Booher, and is wonderfully different than any other production of “Carol” that I’d seen before.  It’s a musical but not the usual big Broadway boomer.  Instead, the songs, many of which sound like old Victorian Christmas carols, or were adapted from same, acted as a fully integrated enrichment to support Dicken’s wonderful language and dialogue, not upstage it. The result is a perfect blend of music and text. Add in a terrific cast at the top of its form, a fabulous set design, beautifully designed costumes and choreography, and superb lighting that becomes a critical part of the drama and you have a truly outstanding production.

I’ve never seen a bad play at PCPA and this one was one of the best.  Do yourself a favor and go see it.  Perfect way to start the holiday season with a happy heart.  www.PCPA.org.  It’s running through Dec 23.    

Sunday Trip

If you've got holiday company and are alooking for a nice morning trip, I suggest a drive up to San Miguel Mission.  The restoration work to repair the damage from the earthquake a few years ago is done.  Even the experts at the Getty got involved to preserve the lovely 1820 frescoes.

   

You can stroll around the courtyards, and grounds.  They even have two mud ovens, though none that look like a giant bear.






There's even a rather bare and sad cemetery where over 2,000 Mission Indians are buried.


And, of course, the requesite antique-looking adobe fountain.

Then Go See Hugo

If  you love movies, Martin Scorsese's new film, Hugo is a must-see.  Avatar and now Hugo are two films where the filmakers really understood how to fully utilize the visual mechanics and qualities of 3-D.  For too many films, 3-D is simply an excuse to add a few bucks to the ticket and throw a few things at the audience.  Or, worse yet, ignore the story altogether and spend the big bucks, not on a great script, but on whiz-bang roller-coaster effects which become as repetitive and uninteresting as a Whirly-Gig ride at the fair after a few minutes.

Not James Cameron, not Martin Scorsese.  They're storytelling makers of moving pictures first and formost and in both films they have created an entire world and invited the viewer to step into that world, not merely sit in a theatre seat and have things tossed out at them.  Huge difference.

As USA Today puts it, Hugo is "a wonderous blend of fantasy and mystery that will appeal to adults as well as children."

But be warned.  There were previews before the movie and it seems George Lucas intends on 3-D-ing his first (actually 3rd) Star Wars movie, (Phantom Menace.)  Trust me, no amount of 3-D can save that film. Or the next one.  I mean, does anyone think 3-D will improve Jar-Jar Binks?  Me thinks not.

And the original, 1977 first Star Wars is perfect as it is.  Gilding that perfect lily is a waste of time.

And if you're in the mood for a far darker film, catch "Take Shelter" at the Palm.  This acting tour de force is compelling, disturbing, riveting portrait of a man coming undone.  Or is he?  Take shelter, indeed.

Happy Thanksgiving

Take a breath, take a walk, hug your kids, hug your dog, visit a neighbor, call a friend, bless the day, bless the food, bless the world. 

And have a happy thanksgiving.  

Yossarian Lives!

 Ron Crawford, over at Sewerwatch ( www.Sewerwatch.blogspot.com  ) has completed a hilarious second round of puzzle-solving.  This one involving former BOS Katcho Kachadjian, he of the public crocodile tears and private “as little as possible” Chinatown ethos.

  Well, who can blame him.  Katcho’s punched his Ambition Ticket and moved on up to play with the big boys in Sacramento and you don’t get into that game unless you’re willing to ask no questions, and when asked to request a very simple, highly focused audit to answer a few simple questions on the State Revolving Fund (all fully documented with supporting documentation), your response will be to do “as little as possible,” or, preferably, nothing at all.  

If you want to know why The 99% hate “government,” Ron’s posting will show you why.  The public, official letters contrasted with the semi-private, wink-nudge casual e-mail exchanges are particularly telling.  It’s all a delicious mash-up of Through the Looking Glass and Catch 22.  Part III of this funny/tragic story will pick up again on January first, when Ron contacts the new “independent” state auditor and starts his “Waltz me Around Again, Willie” round of inquiries.  My bet is the nice lady heading up the new office is already firmly in the Chinatown loop. 

As usual, the local media, Tribune, New Times, Cal Coast News, all of ‘em are also into Chinatown mode.  For a politician, doing as little as possible, especially when it’s all about covering one’s ass, is understandable.  But for the “ watchdog press?”   

Spray Your Troubles Away

I love American snark.  No sooner had campus policeman Lt. John Pike sprayed seated, non-violent, non-threatening Occupy Wall Street protesters at the UC Davis campus, than some wag whipped out PhotoShop and there was Mr. Pike cakewalking through art history.  It was a deliciously satirical take to a needlessly savage act. ( at Huffington Post  www.huffingtonpost.com ) 

The visual symbolism of the real spraying is certainly telling – the absolute contempt, the indifference to the damage about to be done, the pain inflicted -- Mr. Pike as The Exterminator about to poison the bugs at his feet.  It was also an image that evoked the 1960’s, with Sheriff  Bull Connor blasting civil rights demonstrators with high-powered fire hoses.

As an icon of how the 1% views the 99%, Officer Pike dancing through art history doesn’t get any better than that. Let them eat cake. Pike is also a great reminder that things do not change much.  Power does what power does, even in a country whose government professes to derive its power from . . . We the People.  You know, those folks on the ground getting pepper sprayed in the face. 

Creepy Time

You’re only as sick as your secrets, and after watching Clint Eastwood’s new movie, it’s obvious that J. Edgar Hoover was one sick puppy.  Dangerous, too boot.  So that old maxim should be changed to read. “You’re only as sick and dangerous as your secrets,” and Hoover hand and kept many, many secrets.

Clearly, Director Clint Eastwood in his old age hasn’t mellowed.  He seems to be getting downright flinty, Gran Torino-get-off-my-lawn crabby – gimlet-eyed comes to mind.  Which makes this film extremely odd. 

For over two hours, he absolutely savages Hoover with an unblinking eye.  The man was sick, obsessed, seriously weird, dangerous, phony. The movie is filmed in the cold, icy light and grey, washed-out color Eastwood used in a previous film, “Changeling,” which drops the temperature of the theatre to zero and makes all the characters look like the vampires from “Twilight” have already paid them a visit and sucked all the life and blood out of them.

Then, in the middle of this ice-cold, savagely, almost satirically cruel movie, Eastwood proceed to tell us a tender . . . love story. The effect is absolutely disorienting.

Worse, the relentless, intimate focus of the camera puts the viewer into the very uncomfortable position of being a voyeur watching two hours of  intimate, embarrassing unmasking of a failed, sad soul – his good deeds soon buried with him and his appalling weirdness left standing as his malign monument.  Then at the end, we’re supposed to be moved to sympathy for this twisted sister  because he supposedly had at least had one real, true thing in his life: His need for and love for his long-time companion Clyde Tolson.
 But even that romance was hard to believe because it was impossible for me to believe these characters were whole enough to feel anything called “love.”  Neurotic need, self-serving manipulation, folie a deux, toxic attachment, yes.  Love?  Not so much.
  Not to mention, I had real trouble overcoming all the surrounding  ice to see much of anything redeeming about any of these characters.  Hoover and Tolson lived a life of lies, Hoover’s assistant, Helen Gandy, (played by Naomi Watts) was a world-class enabler who stood by her boss as he trashed the law and trampled on the Constitution and grew to wield such power that he could threaten Presidents.
In his earlier movie, “Unforgiven,” a young man says to Easwtood’s character, after witnessing a killing, “Yeah, well, I guess he had it coming.”  To which Eastwood replied, “We all have it coming, Kid.”

In J. Edgar,  perhaps Eastwood has found the perfect illustration of what may be Clint’s ultimate pronouncement on the world.

Amazon Games

If you’ve ever ordered a book from Amazon and wondered about the “star” ratings and “reviews,” well, Los Osos writer Anne R. Allen has a great new blog on writing,  www.annerallen.blogspot.com and has posted a great tell-all as to how that system works. Publishing is changing quickly now, so if you’re still thinking Publishers, hard-bound books, bookstores, etc,.  here’s a chance to Zoom! into what’s really going on.  It's a great read.