DeRosaWorld

Saturday Musings: 'Orderly Revolution' Edition

Doesn’t Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) realize that the first shots fired in a revolution will be at her?

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As spring tries to bloom across the country the nation is seeing cold, wet, snowy weather cling to the new season and cold river waters spilling over into the streets. The winter does not want to leave us.

Republicans don’t want to leave either. The new President can’t get a word in before GOP spokesman are on television telling us what he just said is the wrong. Don’t let Spring in, they tell us …keep the Winter with us.

Well that is not how nature works. Spring brings hope. We can go outside and breath fresh air. It is time for Republicans to let go. Their time is over. The damage is done and now the repairing and the rebirth begins.

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It seems that starting in the 1980s, Americans began to forget if they were poor or not. Credit cards arrived in our mailboxes like holiday greeting cards in December. The old idea of saving for that rainy day or even not spending beyond your means was lost to us.

We didn’t notice that our cost of living increases at work didn’t keep up with the cost of living, because it was supplemented with credit cards.

Now, new credit is nowhere to be found and old credit is a mean series of phone calls and threatening letters and over 30% interest rates. That was the Reagan revolution folks.

So when a Republican gets on TV and say the President Obama is passing a debt onto future generations, just haul off and slap them across the face.

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-Anthony Minghella died last year. He was one of my favorite modern directors. This Sunday, March 29th, one of his last creations airs in America on HBO. The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency.

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Paul MCCartney and Wings... Why are you laughing? I have revisited Band On The
Run and Venus And Mars and I must say, I am enjoying them. Neither album packs the punch of The Beatles, but these two records are probably as good as McCartney gets. They are very infectious and he is one hell of a singer.

Mamunia Mamunia Mamunia
Oh Oh Oh
Mamunia Mamunia Oh Oh Oh Oh 

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Book of the Week: John Steinbeck’s The Log from the Sea of Cortez. John Steinbeck is a novelist in the midst of a Mickey Rourke-like comeback of sorts. This book is a different take on the man’s writings. It is a travel log of a scientific journey along the coast of California and down into Mexico with biologist Edward F. Ricketts.

When I transplanted myself to Los Angeles, California 10 years ago, I went into the ocean once, up to my knees, and then got lost living and working in L.A.  I now live just two blocks from the sea and it is a mesmerizing experience. As I drive off to work each morning, I head straight for the ocean and turn right. Everyday, every single day the first sight of the ocean takes my breath away. The Log from the Sea of Cortez is an important and fascinating look at the ocean that connects America and Mexico as well as a look at Steinbeck’s work through the prism of non-fiction. We see why he is such an important American writer and more relevant to our times than some of his contemporaries.

Nazi King of The Pedophiles Attacks Speaker Of The House

In the most inhospitable counter attack since the Battle of the Bulge, The Pope, (Joey 'Ratz', aka Benedick XVI) the man of god who turned the other cheek on the inhuman atrocities of George Bush, Jr., insulted Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for not doing enough to stop abortions through legislation in the United States.

Pope Bene XVI's final solution to the abortion problem is to build concentration camps and put all the women who have abortions and the doctors that perform them to death and then stick them in ovens and burn the bodies.

Speaker Pelosi rejected the Pope's ideas. She answered his eminence's infallible rudeness by showing him pictures of her children and grandchildren.

Ernest Hemingway Brings Cuba and USA Closer in 2009 (With Links To JFK!)

 

"Cuba has opened up electronic access to thousands of documents belonging to the writer Ernest Hemingway, who wrote some of his greatest works on the island.

The archive includes photographs, letters and manuscripts, as well as an unpublished epilogue to Hemingway's novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls.

The items had been stored in the cellar of the writer's Cuban home for decades.

Curators say the files offer an insight into Hemingway's life on the island, where he lived for 20 years.

"We are talking about 3,194 pages of documents, close to 2,000 plus of documents, some already digitalised," said Ada Rosa Alfonso Rosales, director of the Museo Ernest Hemingway in Havana.

"For practically the first time, this is being made available to students and researchers," she said.

Another 1,000 documents are still to be scanned and added to the archive, Ms Alfonso said.

The archive includes coded messages which Hemingway sent while using his yacht to search for German submarines operating off the island.

Academics and researchers will be able to request electronic copies of the items from Cuba's Heritage Council."

And as an historical bonus...

"...CDs and microfilms of the documents have also been sent to the John F Kennedy library in Boston and could eventually be made available online, said Ms Alfonso."

This Winter Sunset Scene Is Pretty, but...

...it's fucking cold.

Something Else To Do Instead of Watching The Olympics - Day Fourteen: Read Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

NBC Olympic Coverage: Friday, August 22nd (prime time)

8 p.m.-Midnight— Track & Field - Gold Medal Finals: Men's 4x100-meter Relay, Men's Pole Vault, Women's 4x100-meter Relay, Women's Long Jump, Women's 5000-meter, Men's Decathlon 1500-meter; Men's Diving - Platform Semifinal (LIVE); Gymnastics - Rhythmic Competition

Spend the evening with the Rhythmic Gymnastics Team or with Mark Twain's Hank Morgan from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court who wakes up in AD 598 England. One of the first examples of a time-travel novel with a modern man going back in time, technology in tow.

"It was in Warwick Castle that I came across the curious stranger whom I am going to talk about.  He attracted me by three things: his candid simplicity, his marvelous familiarity with ancient armor, and the restfulness of his company—for he did all the talking. We fell together, as modest people will, in the tail of the herd that was being shown through, and he at once began to say things which interested me.  As he talked along, softly, pleasantly, flowingly, he seemed to drift away imperceptibly out of this world and time, and into some remote era and old forgotten country; and so he gradually wove such a spell about me that I seemed to move among the specters and shadows and dust and mold of a gray antiquity, holding speech with a relic of it!  Exactly as I would speak of my nearest personal friends or enemies, or my most familiar neighbors, he spoke of Sir Bedivere, Sir Bors de Ganis, Sir Launcelot of the Lake, Sir Galahad, and all the other great names of the Table Round—and how old, old, unspeakably old and faded and dry and musty and ancient he came to look as he went on!  Presently he turned to me and said, just as one might speak of the weather, or any other common matter—

"You know about transmigration of souls; do you know about transposition of epochs—and bodies?"

I said I had not heard of it.  He was so little interested—just as when people speak of the weather—that he did not notice whether I made him any answer or not. There was half a moment of silence, immediately interrupted by the droning voice of the salaried cicerone:

"Ancient hauberk, date of the sixth century, time of King Arthur and the Round Table; said to have belonged to the knight Sir Sagramor le Desirous; observe the round hole through the chain-mail in the left breast; can't be accounted for; supposed to have been done with a bullet since invention of firearms—perhaps maliciously by Cromwell's soldiers."

My acquaintance smiled—not a modern smile, but one that must have gone out of general use many, many centuries ago—and muttered apparently to himself:

"Wit ye well, I saw it done ."  Then, after a pause, added: "I did it myself."

By the time I had recovered from the electric surprise of this remark, he was gone..."

 

Something Else To Do Instead of Watching The Olympics - The Opening Ceremonies

I will be posting some alternatives each night to watching the Olympic coverage on NBC.

FRIDAY: Olypmpic Opening Ceremonies from 7pm - 11pm (Lame-assed Chinese propaganda about how they too are as gross as America)

FRIDAY: Turner Classic Movies Evening Lineup starting at 7:30pm (Michael Caine night)

7:30 PM Alfie (1966) 
  A British womanizer refuses to grow up until tragedy strikes. Cast: Michael Caine, Vivien Merchant, Shelley Winters. Dir: Lewis Gilbert. C-114 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

9:30 PM Pulp (1972) 
  A pulp fiction novelist fights to survive an assignment to ghost write a controversial star's memoirs. Cast: Michael Caine, Mickey Rooney, Lizabeth Scott. Dir: Michael Hodges. C-95 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format

11:10 PM Short Film: Lion Roars Again, The (1975) 
  An MGM promotional featurette advertising its resurgence into the movie industry in the mid-1970s. Showcased movies include "Logan's Run" (1976), "The Sunshine Boys" (1975), and "The Wind and the Lion" (1975). C-17 mins.

11:30 PM Get Carter (1971) 
  A small-time gangster searches for the truth behind his brother's death. Cast: Michael Caine, Ian Hendry, Britt Ekland. Dir: Mike Hodges. C-112 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format 

All young men should watch Alphie and Get Carter. They are rites of passage.

Saturday Musings

-- Senator Obama’s trip abroad has not exactly been Beatlemania. The longer he stays away, the more people don’t care. He kind of punked out to the Israelis and the Left Wing of the Progressive left wing blogshphere group have stopped waiting for a parting of the Red Sea. Ich bin just another American politician.

Liberal, Democratic, Progressive, New Left icon Robert Scheer had a mostly ignored article on Truthdig about our Democratic Messiah. Not something the D-Party wants to hear in the middle of a presidential campaign. "Barack Obama is betraying his promise of change and is in danger of becoming just another political hack."

BHO is becoming a bore.

-- The Olympics are coming and I intend to miss every moment of them.

-- Hey, if President Bush, Jr. is in the middle of impeachment proceedings as his term ends. He can’t pardon anyone. That is reason enough to put impeachment on the table and go at it like a Thanksgiving Day turkey.

-- “We have been visited.”  FORMER NASA astronaut and moon-walker Dr Edgar Mitchell - a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission - has stunningly claimed aliens exist. The Catholic Church is even preparing the Faithful by telling its flock that aliens are God’s children, too. I’m wearing a tin foil hat to Confession.

-- Our Secretary of State is hanging out at girl’s schools in Australia and talking about going shopping after destroying the world.  Girls Just Want To Have Fu-uun.

-- As far as music goes, I am still on my The Who kick. The more mature music of Willie and Linda and Emmylou have been replaced on my drive-time playlist by Quadrophenia: "Her fellah''s going to kill me? Oh, fucking will he."

-- I am in summer reading overload. My bathroom nightstand has a tower of books with toilet paper bookmarks stuck 2/3 through them all.

I just received my first Andre Gide (The Counterfeiters) from my transplanted, east coast friends. Seems like the kind of book I would read in the Fall, when it starts to get chilly out, school is back, I have long subway rides and time to kill at lunch …wait, I’m in California now. I’ll read it in the car.

-- Rigatoni with arrabiatta sauce tonight.

Saturday Musings

- - Some political notes from the field and a DeRosaWorld poll: I was in Pennsylvania and New Jersey last week and talked a lot of politics with a lot of people. I think Senator Obama is going to take both states by a large margin. Most people I spoke with were Hillary supporters, but it is any Democrat against McCain for them. These are the 'Archie Buckers' the Obama campaign painted with racist colors during the primaries. They have forgiven him.

They are so sick of the Republican Party and President Bush, Jr. that they are supporting Obama. Race may or may not be an issue for them, but not a show-stopper. They are afraid of McCain and despise the policies of the Republicans that have brought about the housing foreclosures, the high price of gasoline, and the Iraq war and shame. Shame, a word I heard repeated.

They are also tired of all the right-wing media bleating on and on and on in defense of the Bush, Jr. Administration. They don't believe it anymore. They are afraid that their sons will be drafted. These are the things they are talking about.

The politics of fear worked too well and now the electorate is afraid of the Republicans.

There is a concern about Obama out here, but it is not the color of his skin. They are worried because they know nothing about him. They are afraid of his inexperience. They are afraid he will fail before he can turn things around. They are now pinning their hopes on an unknown. That is how desperate they are. So if the skinny kid with the funny name doesn’t have any more Larry Sinclairs out there with pictures of him snorting cocaine off his boner, then I think we are going to have ourselves a Democrat in the White House come November…and he is going to get a lot of white support, both male and female, rich and poor.

- - The progressive blogosphere was of a mixed mind this week. Some wanted to be mad at Senator Obama for caving into the FISA bill…and they are right to be mad. What was he thinking?

Others were begrudgingly clapping for Senator Clinton for supporting their man…and they are right to be happy. The Hillary supporters are going to come out strong for Obama in November. Could the same be said of the Obama supporters if the Democratic Party nominee were Senator Clinton?

- - The Stonewall Riots began on June 28, 1969 in New York City on Christopher Street at the Stonewall Inn. The NYC cops got as good as they gave that day. This day is still celebrated in the bars of the West Village. Before Stonewall is a great documentary about the gay community and the times leading up to the riots.

- - I couldn’t fit Don DeLillo’s Underworld into the carry-on, so I took two slim Gore Vidal novels with me, hoping the Office of Homeland Security didn’t open my bag. In A Yellow Wood and Dark Green, Bright Red are two very honest and unique novels. They have been reprinted in England; you cannot get them in America. I got them from Amazon UK. (Beware the weak dollar vs. the euro.)

Two post World War Two novels that the New York Times either didn’t care for or refused to review because of The City and the Pillar scandal. In A Yellow Wood (1947) is a rare look at life in New York City immediately after the war as veterans come home and take up the business of America. And in that glorious time between VJ Day and the Communist witch hunts when American artists thought they could be honest with us and themselves. This is the time of film noir in Hollywood. Something was wrong. The defeat of fascism didn’t bring peace, just prosperity. There was something new out there that was in charge now, and to be afraid of …and it turned out to be us.

Dark Green, Bright Red (1950) is a great example of the cliché “ahead of its time”. This book shows us what America was up to in Central America before most Americans could find Guatemala on a map; empire building, with a little sex in it. If there was ‘special rendition’ in 1950, Vidal would have been shipped off to the basement of the Pentagon for revealing state secrets.

- - Yes, I did have a soft pretzel and of course cheese steaks. Three cheese steaks in fact. I also had some decent Chinese Food, something California is in as short supply as water. How hard is it to make an egg roll with a little hot mustard on the side?

- - Get yourself some good sipping whiskey and buy Emmylou Harris’ All I Intended To Be. At first you’ll sit and feel sorry for yourself and feel the aches and pains of middle age, but by the end you will be refreshed and ready to get up and face the world. She captures that middle-aged need to put your feet up feeling. Fuck the young; let them suffer with the High School Musical soundtrack. This album was made for adults by adults.

- - One last word on flying in modern America. It sucks and the airline industry should be ashamed of itself. If they don't want to do the job anymore, give it up and let us have a lot of smaller, independent airlines with the American, small  business mentality. Let's make the FAA do its fucking job and in this new century let the major airlines go the way of TV news, movies, rock & roll, cheap gasoline and other 20th century Americana. Something needs to change because Americans need and want to travel around this great country of ours and the current major airlines do not deserve our business. Americans do not deserve being treated like this.

"At no time did we exceed 175 mph."

The first Cannonball Run crossed the finish line November 17, 1971 in Redondo Beach, California.

There is a good article about the first run on Inside Line.

I drove across the country twice in my life (so far). The fist time I was 15 and on a learner's permit. I flunked my driver's test and the trip was planned...so I went. Needless to say I passed the test with flying colors when I got back. I drove a Dodge Challenger across the center of the country along Route 70. I had never seen such horizons and vastness until then. The Great Plains were quite the eye opener to a city kid.

The second time was in 1999 when I moved from New York City to Los Angeles. I drove a Chevy Cavalier alone that time and took the southern route. I made a sharp left turn in Pennsylvania and hard right in Tennessee and raced to Los Angeles. I did the trip in 5 days. No sight-seeing. The southern route is nice too, and the mountains in Virginia may be one of the most beautiful places in America.

We have a beautiful country with amazingly different landscapes. Cars are better than ever, now with satellite radio and navigation systems. I highly recommend a cross country trip at some point in your life. I'm going to start planning my next one.