Looks.....

.... maybe it is just me, but I found this to be one of the sexiest scenes that I have ever witnessed where both folks had their clothes on......

..... sometimes you just don't have to say anything at all........

Feathers....

.... hey, if you have a couple of hours, I highly recommend grabbing a cool libation and giving this a whirl.......

.... there are certainly worse ways to spend an hour and fifty minutes....

Movies.....

.... off early tomorrow for another visit to the south......... and if you ask me?...... Steve Earle says it all.....

...... but really?...... I am broken........ I am busted....... and my vision has changed...... I am not the person that I was six months ago........

...... I cannot find the beauty in every day like I used to......... I just can't find it........... I see the same things, sure, but they are not as vibrant........ they are not as real...... and, really, I am quite lost........

..... perhaps I should just channel me some Tara...... ala "Gone with the Wind"......

.... then again, perhaps tomorrow isn't just another day.....

Movies....

..... once upon there was a movie called "The Frisco Kid".... it was an odd little movie that paired Harrison Ford with Gene Wilder and featured a wandering rabbi blabbing in Yiddish all the way across The Old West.....

.... now, in the Great Scheme of Things, that pairing would be bad enough on its own, but sadly the story-line didn't fare much better than the pairing...... anyway, I mention this only because I have an uncle that looks EXACTLY like Wilder's character in the movie...... same wild hair, same crazy eyes, same insane beard.... no decorative yarmulke though, but you get the point.... he sports a baseball cap instead....

..... I often imagine that most of my female aunts wish that more of my uncles looked more like Harrison Ford and less like Gene Wilder....

.... then again, nowadays the "Frisco Kid" is a rapper with songs like "Head Hurt" and "Look What Dem Done"........

.... good god, Gene...... what were you thinking?........ and Harrison?....... Jesus Christ.......... the whole scene ranks right up there with Bill Cosby starring in "Ghost Dad" on the scale of Bad Career Decisions........

..... and speaking of "ghosts", I have been seriously enjoying all of the paranormal television shows in the run-up to Halloween.... I can handle watching grown men wander around old houses in pitch dark all day long, but I'm still not happy about "The Walking Dead" being turned into a whole television SERIES..... good god, can you imagine?..... just the advertisements give me the heebie jeebies.....

Tension....

..... further to yesterday evening's post, here is what I was talking about....... THIS is Nicholson at his finest....... and in my view, by far the scariest scene in the whole movie...

.... 8 minutes well spent..... and as I said, no one does crazy like Nicholson....

Whacked.....

... I watched the extended version of "The Shining" this evening, and wow.......

..... no one on EARTH does "crazy" like Jack Nicholson..... NO one....... the man is crazy incarnate..... and don't get me started on Madeleine Stowe..... good lord, I re-watched "The Last of the Mohicans" two days ago, and she was almost as cute as Daniel Day Lewis...... and her with Jack in "The Two Jakes"....... well, she was a very naughty girl.......... Daniel should have been so lucky.......

.... but also?..... no one on earth does "I'm scared shitless" like Shelley Duvall......... I swear, there is no one who looks as terrified as she does in that movie...... kudos for her beating Jack in the head with that baseball bat on the stairway though........ that was inspiring......

... I mean, just look at this....

.... I swear, this whole desensitizing myself of scary shit by watching scary movies seriously isn't working.......

Burying....

...... [sitting under an oak with Charles Ryder] "Just the place to bury a crock of gold. I should like to bury something precious, in every place I've been happy. And then when I was old, and ugly and miserable, I could come back, and dig it up, and remember. " Sebastian, Brideshead Revisited

.... an interesting idea, no?....

Professionals.....

..... two days ago I found some time to re-watch 'The Professionals' in its entirety.... and damn, but I do love me a Lee Marvin flick.... I've been a fan of his flea-bitten self since the first time I saw him in 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance'.... and in later years I bought his biography and could not get enough....

.... did you know that he was wounded as a young Marine on Saipan and spent 9 months in the hospital recovering from his gunshot wounds?..... and that while he was an island-hopping jarhead his father was a sergeant in the army in Europe trying to kill Nazis?....... and more than that, after healing from his wounds, he was declared 80% disabled well before his acting career ever took off....... he was a true old corps combat vet of the highest caliber, folks.......

..... but I mention all of this because I watched the middle and end of 'The Professionals' again yesterday with The Missus..... and after an hour (just after the scene where Burt Lancaster scaled the rope to place the explosives in the canyon), she arose and sallied off to fetch my Oxford Biographical Dictionary from the living room bookshelf....

... and after leafing through quite a few pages she arrived back and sat herself down with a thud.....

Her: ..did you see Burt just climb that rope?....

Me: ...... oh yeah.... huge upper body strength..... and you know, he always did his own stunts...... he was in GREAT shape for this movie...... I've climbed a few ropes before, and he was doing that shit the HARD way...... .

Her: ..this movie was made the year that I was born...... I just checked..... he was 53 when he climbed that rope..... Lee Marvin was nearly ten years younger than him when they shot this.....

Me: ..... yeah, well, he certainly kept himself really well...... did you know that he was actually drafted during the war?..... and he spent all of his time entertaining the troops in Africa and Italy?...... never saw any combat....

Her: .. no, I didn't know that..... but wow, what a fine figure of a man he was.... even at 53....... I mean, just look at him!...... and Pompey, too!.... remember him from 'Liberty Valance'?...... he was Wayne's valet during the movie....... just look at those two guys.....

Me: ...... ummm, yeah, I guess.... that's Woody Strode as your Pompey, but you miss the point.... I think that Marvin has much more character than either of those two in this movie...... just look at him...... he's ten years Lancaster's junior, and he looks like he's 65.... and yet you still know that he can kick some ass when some ass-kicking is needed........

Her: .... I wonder what you'll look like when your 53.......

Me: ... me?.... I doubt I'll make it that long, honestly........ but if I do, I imagine that I'll look a bit more like Lee Marvin than Burt Lancaster......

Her: .... wait.... how old was your Father when he died?....

Me: ... he was born in the autumn of 1945 and died in the spring of 2001...... so he was just shy of being 56 years old.......

Her: ..... wow..... you know, I remember his 55tth birthday...... he'd just been diagnosed with cancer and your Mother sent us those photos of him peeling back the swimming pool cover and doing that backwards flip into the water on his birthday....... in September of 2000...... there wasn't an inch of fat anywhere on him.....

Me:.... yeah, I remember that...... he did a flip on his birthday every year that they had the pool..... they'd close the pool on Labor Day and he'd open it back up on the 26th - his birthday - just so he could act crazy and celebrate a little.......

Her: ...... you know, you can have Lee Marvin....and I'll keep Burt and Pompey.........

Me: .... heh.... thanks... now, shut up and watch the end of the movie..... this is the part where they all tell their "boss" that he can kiss their ass and they'd rather see Raza run off with is True Love than collect their blood money... it's the best part of the movie!....

Her:...... Jack Palance was a God as well, you know?....... but your Dad could have kicked ALL of their asses..... in turn....... and then still have done a back-flip.......

Me: ...... you're probably right........ now, shush........ and watch the movie!!....

... here's the trailer in case you've never seen the movie before.....

.... I'm pretty sure that my Dad could have taken them all in a fair fight....... but not all at once...... he'd have needed to whip them one at a time......

Stripping.....

.... I re-watched The Full Monty again this evening after dinner, and was - as always - quite moved and inspired..... it truly is one of the most heartwarming films that "gets me" every time...... having said that, one cannot deny the certain parallels between The Fully Monty and particular aspects of blogging..... no?......

..... well, maybe not, rubberneckers....... but it is enough that YOU know that I see it that way......... and hey, feel free to sing along!.....

...... as for me, I shall leave my hat on........ it's a pith helmet, actually, not really a hat......... but hey, there you go......

Newspapers...

... hindsight is, as they say, 20/20....... we have the benefit of having history books to read, but those who actually lived through those times had no idea what was around the next corner...... and I am continually amazed to catch The Perspective of History from new sources who were actually there.....

.... HBO has been running a marathon of The Pacific today in the run-up to tomorrow's debuting of episode 7, and I have been enjoying re-watching them.... so far I have watched episode 2 four times...... and I continue to see or hear something new each time I watch any of them.......

.... but there is a scene in episode 2 that absolutely chokes me up every time.... it did it again today - for the 4th time....

.... the scene begins with the weak, starving, resolute Marines slowly climbing up the cargo nets on the side of the ships..... and near the top - and likely near his physical breaking point - a hand reaches down from the railing to help..... it then cuts to the filthy Marines visiting the galley in search of coffee.... they are met by a sailor who replies that the galley is closed.... they ask for coffee, and he sheepishly replies, "Shit, I can definitely get you boys some coffee........ cream and sugar?".....

.... after being abandoned, desperate, starving, AND fighting the Japanese so viciously, the looks on their faces at being offered "cream and sugar" is both heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time..... it drives home just how desperate they had been.....

.... as they inhale the aroma of their fresh coffee - almost lost in the joy of finally being safe AND having a nice cup of hot Joe - the sailor asks them, "So, how bad was it?"...... none of them say a word, but there is a tension in the room...... the sailor turns away saying, "I'd heard it was bad."...... and just as he turns to leave the Marines alone with their thoughts and their coffee, one of them speaks up.... "Who?... Who told you that?.... I mean, before you came here, had you ever even HEARD of Guadalcanal?!".....

.... the young sailor turns back to them and says, "What? Guadalcanal? Hell, everybody's heard of Guadalcanal.... you boys are on the front page of every newspaper in America..... You guys are heroes.".....

.... those Marines had held on.... surrounded.... abandoned.... starving..... and they had no idea that their desperate fight was being followed by every family in the United States.... those "Raggedy-assed Marines" with their uniforms rotting off were winning the first victory of the war for the USA....

.... they had thought no one cared that they were fighting and dying in a far away jungle.....

... that scene gets me every single time...... I cannot even imagine how hearing those words must have made them feel......

Screenplay....

.... so I'm kicking back last night enjoying a few episodes of 'Band of Brothers', when The Missus decides to tell me a little bit about the book she is reading - 'Forrest Gump'.....

... now, I've watched the movie every time that I run across it on the tube, and I must say that I truly enjoy it.... it really is one of those movies that you can watch over and over, and still laugh at the stupid parts every single time..... so, as you may have guessed, I was quite interested in hearing about her experience in reading THE BOOK versus what I knew about THE FILM..... and in a word?.... WOW.....

..... I think that my eyes glazed over somewhere between the cannibals catching him, him learning to speak orangutan, horny male orangutans in space trying to fondle female astronauts, Forrest convincing the cannibal chieftain not to barbecue him, the orangutan, or the girl due to his having amazing skills at the game of chess (and, of course, the cannibal chieftain was a HUGE chess fan), and Forrest dressed as 'The Monster from the Black Lagoon' carrying a scantily clad Raquel Welch down Sunset Strip whilst talking orangutanese to the orangutan.....

.... and no, I am not making any of that up..... at.all....

..... how screenwriters could take that novel and turn it into the movie that we all know and love, well, quite frankly it is beyond my scope of understanding....

..... I'm definitely going to have to give that book a read though..... if just to try to figure out what exactly the author was stoned on when he began to put pen to paper.....

Re-make.....

... saw it tonight, folks....... and it was sooooo cool to watch "the transformation" ala 2010......

...... nice, eh?.....

Fighting.....

..... in a break from the usual, The Missus and I toured the back roads today in search of a movie in Cleveland..... and after a forty-minute drive under blue skies and along extremely curvy roads we ended up hitting the 2pm showing of "Sherlock Holmes" in McDonald, Tennessee - just south of Cleveland.... and my, was it a beautiful day for a drive in the country...

... as for the movie, I liked it quite a bit....... I've always been a fan of the Sherlock stories, and this one was wrapped up nicely by the end of the flick in fitting fashion....... however, in all of my reading, I never pictured Holmes as a MMA hardman...... and yet, I found his bare-knuckle fight scene absolutely enthralling......

... here, check this out....

.... once upon a time I would have vivid, bloody dreams similar to this at least once a month..... these days, not so much..... but wow, it was such a shock to see Holmes portrayed in such a way.... and it definitely brought back memories of my old dreams......

.... I haven't been in a fight in a very long time...... but when I have, they all ended just about as quickly as they started...... bam, bam, bam, bam, and it was over....... most movies show long, drawn-out scenes that are completely unrealistic...... from my experience, Holmes rocked that guy's world in about three seconds....... which is pretty realistic...... it's like the motto of the SAS says, I guess..... "Who Dares Wins".....

... still, I recommend the movie....... it's a lot of fun...... and it's kinda nice to watch Sherlock Holmes kick some ass..... (... sorry, Mr. Rathbone, but it's true...) ....

Chicks.....

.... so, the Missus chose to watch "Pitch Black" again this evening..... I had whipped up an enormous batch of my chicken korma, and it seemed that the night was settled....... garlic naan, chicken korma, a bottle of wine, and "Pitch Black"..... what could go wrong?.......

..... well, I'll tell you.......

..... midway through the flick, she turned to me and asked, "why is it that we enjoy this movie so much?"....... I thought for a bit, quite surprised at the question, and replied, "redemption?"....... she nodded thoughtfully and poured another glass of wine.......

... all was well for a while........

...... and twenty minutes later - just as Vin Diesel was shaving his head with a glazing of axel grease and a piece of space craft debris - she spoke up again...... "I think that we like this movie so much because it is an honest to goodness 'chick flick'.... "....

..... I was stunned at first, as I am sure that most of you would have been..... I mean, Aliens? Criminals? Muscle-bound heroes? Muslims jamming glowing space-slugs into an old Jack Daniels bottle to keep from being eaten in the dark by head-butting, flying space nasties?.........

....... I mouthed a few of these concerns, but they bounced off of stoic ears.....

..... her response was that all of the actual heroes in the film were women.... thus, in a roundabout sort of way, "Pitch Black" was a "chick flick".......

.... when the planets first started to align, it was a woman who said that she could fix the sand-cat and drag the fuel pods back to the escape skiff........ the little boy who mimicked Riddick turned out to be a little girl (being brave, of course)....... and in the end, it was the heroics of the second mate (a female) who actually allowed Riddick, the girl (who had been posing as a boy), and the Muslim cleric to safely escape the blackened planet before they were eaten by the scary things......

... now, honestly, I see her point...... I do........ but I do also vehemently disagree with her view of things........ and while I have been forced to sit through many a chick flick, I simply cannot agree that "Pitch Black" even remotely qualifies.........

...... and so, I asked her this evening what I should post about, and her reply was that I ask you guys...... so, there you have it.......

..... "Pitch Black", folks...... a chick flick?.... or a great movie about redemption, surviving hostile environs, and just generally running around alien worlds being a knife-wielding badass?........

Hitchcock....

.... today has taught me that I am not a fan of Alfred Hitchcock... after marathons of "Marnie", "Psycho", "Rear Window", and "Vertigo", I am done...... Hedren in "Marnie" is just plain bizarre...... sure, her hair looks like some sort of football helmet, but it was the rape scene with Sean Connery that nixed the whole thing for me...... well, that and her shooting her horse......... and her beating that sailor to death while her whore Mom sobbed underneath the undesirable mass that is Bruce Dern....... so, yeah, there was that...... hell, I've never forgiven him for gunning down John Wayne in "The Cowboys"......

.... and don't even get me started on "Vertigo"..... can you believe that they cast a decorated WWII BOMBER pilot as someone with vertigo?..... good god........ and the eyebrows on that chick he was fawning over looked like they might have busted loose at any moment from her temples and flapped in the breeze - causing her blondeness to take flight and flap out over San Francisco Bay with no trouble at all.........

.... damn, I hate Hitchcock movies with a burning passion........

..... but still, Happy New Year!.....

... instead of the usual black-eyed peas, collard greens, and all other things Southern, we chose a less traditional feast for this afternoon's dining......... crumbled breakfast sausage, a huge hunk of Velveeta cheese, and a jar of Pace picante sauce slow-cooked until it was ready for dipping.......

..... a finer food for nibbling whilst watching college football has never been invented, folks.........

.... of course, we're both likely to die of heart failure in the very near future, but hey!....... what is it that Red says in the "Shawshank Redemption" so eloquently?........ "Get busy livin', or get busy dyin'?......... well, there you go, rubberneckers...........

...... lunch and dinner were served from the very same bowl, and there were no complaints.......... other than, as mentioned before, the fact that I had to watch Miss Eyebrows fall of that rooftop FOUR TIMES today........ AND sit through poor ole Janet Leigh's delicate chest getting punctured at LEAST three times over the past two days.....

.... the only decent film that Hitchcock made - as far as I'm concerned - was "Rope"...... but even then you still wanted all of the characters to catch rabies and bite themselves to death by the end as the credits rolled.......

.... and yes, even Jimmy Stewart........

Oversight.....

.... just home from a lovely three-generational family dinner hosted by my Sainted Mother...... Aunt Frances started cooking a 20lb ham at 6am this morning and by the time we began eating, it was falling apart, salty, and absolutely out of this world..... deviled eggs, creamed corn, cole slaw, broccoli casserole, baked beans, sausage balls, creamed cheese & ham ball, macaroni and cheese, corn on the cob, fudge, Martha Washington candy, oat meal cookies, and a huge coconut cake...... today's meal made Thanksgiving look like an afternoon snack......

... and the ham, good god..... why anyone would choose turkey over a slow-cooked country ham is beyond me.... they must be insane.......

... Christmas was enjoyed by all.... gifts were exchanged and the elders bandied jokes.... and at the end of the evening a little cousin was strolling around giving everyone goodbye hugs...... when he got to me, the four-year old gazed up and shook his head.....

... "no hug for me then?"....

"nope", he shrugged....

..... "am I too scary looking for a hug?"....

"no, just weird looking."

..... so there you have it, rubberneckers....... no Christmas hugs for me, I guess....... I'm evidently much too "weird looking"......

.... cheeky little varmint..... I'm writing a letter to Santa Claus next year, and you can bet on that.....

..... oh, and speaking of letters, one of the gifts that I purchased for The Missus this year was "1,000 Movies You Must See Before You Die"...... she's a bit of a movie fan, and she loved the book..... HOWEVER, "Jeremiah Johnson" came on the other day, and she happily grabbed up her book to see what the author had to say about Sydney Pollack's classic only to find that "Jeremiah Johnson" did NOT MAKE THE CUT.....

.... she was horrified.... and I was incredulous!..... no "Jeremiah Johnson"??..... good god, the book obviously isn't worth the paper that it is printed on!..... hell, I have a framed, original 1972 movie poster of the film hanging proudly in my own damned living room!...

..... after I've digested all of this ham, I'm definitely writing a letter to the "author" of that book to tell him what a huge oversight he is guilty of.........

Eliza....

.... this evening The Missus cackled with glee when she - whilst flicking through the television channels as I whipped up a batch of tacos - found that "My Fair Lady" was coming on in half an hour...... and as I sit here now, Mr. Doolittle has just ended his meeting with The Professor and Ms. Doolittle is ripping heartily into "Just You Wait, 'Enry 'Iggins" while wildly out of tune.....

... .good god, what is it that women see in that storyline?...... a poor flowergirl with a dreadful Cockney accent being sold off by her own Father, mistreated & demeaned by a stuck-up snob who is waaaay too old for her, and then she falls in love with the guy??...... Jesus Christ...... I just don't get it.......

.... the only redeeming tidbit in the whole damned film is watching Audrey suffer through attempting to talk while trying not to swallow a mouthful of marbles....and hell, THAT is only funny for the most base and sadistic of reasons.....

... as I live and breathe, I will never understand the appeal of that movie..... to me, it'd make a lot more sense if Eliza had reached her humiliation breaking point and smashed Henry Higgins' knees with his chamber pot while he slept.... and then forced him to eat that whole jar of marbles while reciting Poe's "The Raven" in the thickest Cockney he could muster......

... this, sadly, is probably why I haven't written a Broadway play yet....... but wow, I just don't get it.......

Stars....

..... "The Asphalt Jungle" was on in the living room last night, and I spent the better part of the evening eavesdropping on conversations of crosses, double-crosses, and triple-crosses courtesy of John Huston's directing prowess......

..... what a tangled world we live in, eh?...... and what an even more tangled world we can imagine if we really put our minds to it....

...... but as for imagining?....... well, I'd like to imagine that if I were one of the actors in Huston's stable that I'd either have been James Whitmore or Lee Marvin......

...... the problem is that I have read Marvin's biography and I haven't read Whitmore's...... so, I am a bit biased...... and I tend to lean a bit more towards Whitmore.... Whitmore can be gritty when he needs to be, of course..... but he is still mostly loveable around the edges in most roles..... Marvin?...... he was just a bit too mean for me..... I'd like to have had a beer or two with him, but not share a bottle of tequila, if you know what I mean.......

..... one of us would have most assuredly gotten cut by the end of the night, I feel quite certain..... besides, both he and Whitmore were combat vets........ I'm sure that they both had great stories to tell if given the chance.......

.... but, I digress....

..... but isn't that always the way with things?..... you get a peek here and there?.... you watch the movies, listen to the interviews, and read the stories in the tabloids?........ hear the gossip..... pour over the documentaries......

.... we somehow find our celluloid heroes alter egos and then work so very hard to know more, and more, and more about them..... as if us knowing their wife's name and their wedding anniversary will somehow make us feel closer to them the next time a flick of theirs is shown on the tube......

.... hell, isn't a whole industry built on such long-distance rubbernecking of our "Stars"?......

.....ahhhh, I know that I am grousing....... I've actually been in an epically bad mood for the past two days, so I suppose that I should be given a bit of slack......

..... but really?.... the only problem that I have with Mr. Whitmore is his politics......... otherwise, he and I are square on......... but Lee?......

...... well, how can this make any man anywhere not want to wake up and realize that he is Lee Marvin.....

...... old movies, I swear.......... sometimes "the rest of the story" is what "the story" was all about to begin with!.....

Casting.....

..... good god..... I just saw Humphrey Bogart pretending to be a Mexican bandit in the movie "Virginia City"..... well, maybe not a "Mexican bandit", but he did have a pencil-thin mustache and was riding a horse..... I walked through the living room just as he was talking saucily to Errol Flynn

..... I think that I'm traumatized..... Bogart shouldn't be in westerns..... ever......

..... I don't think I'll be able to watch The Maltese Falcon the same way ever again.....

Buttercup.....

....for the past two nights I have had the most horrific nightmares..... Saturday morning I was sitting upright in bed - fresh from a nightmare - at 4:30am...... and this morning?...... 6:15am.....

.... ghosts from the past, monsters, drowning, plagues of bumblebees, sharks, and zombies........ vampires, shooting accidents, betrayals, creepy Tarot card readers, and car wrecks......... and lastly?...... a dream of a really, really nasty sunburn.........

..... I swear, I just don't know what's up... but I do know this, folks...... if I dream tonight of paper cuts and lemon juice, I'm filing suit against Rob Reiner tomorrow morning.....

Thunder.....

...... I ended up watching the 1950s version of "Thunder Road" today, and it certainly brought up a few memories.......

.... my maternal Grandfather looked like an exact cross between Robert Mitchum and Dean Martin (when both they AND he were in their prime.).... hell, if you wadded them both up like PlayDoh and formed them into another man?.... It'd have been my Grandpa Carl....... .and I suspect that he could likely have out-drank both of them at the drop of a hat....... even after having been wadded up and created out of PlayDoh like that....... although I suspect that he had never worn a tuxedo in his life....

...... he was as County as you can possibly imagine...... and then some....... enough to make the straightest of hair curl at the first realization of just how Country he really was.... sure, he'd been to Paris, Brussels, and Berlin during the war.... and NYC,
Chicago, Detroit, Omaha, San Francisco, LA, Las Vegas, and many other places while hobo'ing before the war.... but when his rambling times were over, he wound up not 10 miles from where he was born...... and here he stayed until the end of his life.....

.... family lore has it that when Mitchum was down here in East Tennessee researching for the role, my Grandpa and he went on a three week bender together after having met at a now-defunct beer joint called "Little Reno" just off Highway 411 back in 1956.....

..."Little Reno" was torn down when the road was widened a few years back.....

.... it's sad how progress seems to somehow force us to live in our heads instead of providing us with landmarks to point at.... but, hey....... whose landmarks last forever?.......

..... I remember two tales about the goings on at "Little Reno" when my Grandpa was in his prime..... the first?....... he'd been drinking one weekend and called home for my Mother to come and fetch him........ when she arrived, he was shirtless in the November evening...... trousers, shoes, socks, tee-shirt, and jacket........

..... when she asked him what had happened, he simply said that a gentlemen he had been talking to had admired his shirt (a shirt which she had picked out for him - and bought - as a birthday present the month before)........ so he had stood up, unbuttoned the shirt, and given it to the man........ when my Mother asked him why, he simply said, "baby, I love that you bought me that shirt..... and I loved the shirt....... the cloth was beautiful......I loved the color......... but if you had seen that guy?...... when he said that he liked it, it seemed like the best thing to do was to give it to him...... he didn't have much else, sweetheart....."....

.... the second tale will have to wait until I am in a better mood...... it isn't quite so bloodless, if you know what I mean......

.... but after watching that movie tonight, I can't stop thinking about that shirt that he gave up..... he obviously loved it........

...... but more so, what did my Mother think?...... was she proud that he gave that shirt away?..... was she horrified?........ was she heart-sick?.....

..... seeing things as WE see them does not always make it the right point of view to examine things from, I guess.........

...... her birthday is tomorrow and I will be taking her to lunch........ so perhaps I will bring it up then......... besides, I think that it is a very good question to ask a woman who loved her Father so.......

Conan!....

..... "Conan The Destroyer" is on Cimemax, boys & girls...... you have been informed....

..... I'm off to watch for Dramatic Renewal of Purpose.......

Careers........

..... over coffee, eggs, and sausage links this morning, I happened to catch an Audrey Hepburn flick on TCM......

.... and honestly?.... what in the GREAT LIVING HELL was Audrey thinking when she signed up to star in "Green Mansions" opposite Anthony Perkins??...... Anthony Perkins was Psycho, for crying out loud!........

.... good god...... I've always imagined (with few exceptions) little Audrey being as pure as the driven snow....... but now?...... well, she MUST have been doing some serious drugs to have been stoned enough to agree to THAT script...... and picturing that frail, delicate little flower drugged out of her mind & limp as a dishrag just shatters so very, very many images I've had in my head......

.... and that red leotard scene was just plain creepy.......

..... and her making out with Mr. Perkins?...... well, we'll not even go there....

..... what a morning, ladies and gentlemen.......

Horror......

.... you know, I've never been a fan of horror movies, and I still am'nt, if the truth be told......... in fact, I have loathed them since my earliest childhood...... my Father used to come home on weekends and let me stay up late to watch a show hosted by Dr. Shock & Dingbat - and I suppose that they are truly to blame for my phobias....... but damn, God bless'im, he was just trying to do that whole "bonding" thing with his first-born, so I guess it is just one of those things that you have to live with......

.... I remember him taking leave of me on the couch after everyone had gone to bed one time...... he'd went off to bathe, and left the five-year-old me scrunched up on the couch watching "Jaws" alone......

.... remember that bit where the diver turned over that sunken boat and that severed head drifted up towards the divers face?........ well, I'll never forget the sight of my naked, dripping-wet Father as he came sliding across the wood floor (after having just jumped out of a perfectly good tub of bathwater) to come save me from the harm that the villains he'd just imagined had burst through the front door and were exercising on his Eldest as I screamed bloody murder........

.... ahhhh.... The Joys of Youth, no?.......

..... and while I'm at it, I also remember that dire David Soul vehicle "Salem's Lot" from the early 80's...... remember when he walked into that room and that vampire/possessed guy was stuck to the wall?....... good god, that gave me the heebie jeebies back then.....

..... oh, and remember when "Pet Cemetery" came out in the early 1990's?....... good god, I was home on leave from the Marine Corps when a friend of mine forced me to watch that flick....... that old woman with the gnarly spinal column still freaks me out...... and that little un-dead toddler with the scalpel who slashed the sheriff's Achilles tendon as he got out of bed?.......... I swear, it has taken nearly fifteen years for me to get over casually dangling my legs over the edge of any bed without remembering that scene of bloodcurdling screams, slashings, and general mayhem........

..... but yesterday?....... I dove off the Deep End of Desensitizing, and watched the latest "Dawn of The Dead" from start to finish...... and today?...... I suffered through THREE recorded episodes of "A Haunting" from the Discovery Channel, "30 Days of Night", AND a cheesy 1950s alien flick with Tom Tryon where he was a kind of "bodysnatching" alien who had taken over the body of some guy and truly enjoyed banging his "new" wife........

....... well, in case you haven't seen it, just trust me...... the World is full of strange and scary shit, folks....

.... but by God, if I'm going to be frightened of something, it's going to be something that I CAN actually shoot at until I run out of bullets........

... and this Zombie/horror movie thing has just Got To Go........ one way Or the other........

.... I'm tired of being scared of things that writers and film makers dream up without my permission..........

...... so from now on out, I'm only going to be afraid of everything that I watch on The News........

... that should make everything better, right?......

Friday....

.... today has been overcast & gray, but warm..... so The Missus and I dropped the top on Sylvia this afternoon, and headed north to Maryville for lunch and a movie....

.... lunch was enjoyed at Aubrey's, and it did not disappoint.... although the portion size was completely over the top for any normal human being..... for instance, I ordered their buttermilk chicken fingers (they were incredibly tasty and tender), and when my plate arrived, they were literally piled five inches high.......

... hey, I like chicken as much as the next guy, but I don't need a POUND of them.... no matter HOW tasty the damned things are......

... as for the movie?..... we chose "Taken", and wow..... if you like to see bad guys being killed, beaten, and maimed in new and unusual ways, then it is definitely a flick you can enjoy over and over again.... and ole Liam did a helluva job smacking the crap out of big, beefy gentlemen who were probably half his age.....

.... oh, and there were lots of excellent Audi-porn moments as well...... which was refreshing....

.... as for the storyline, it certainly has a high "holy shit" factor.... both in how one can gather intel AND in exactly how bad "the bad guys" inhabiting our world are..... sure, it was fiction, but I have no doubt that scenarios such as the one depicted in "Taken" are all too real.......

.... all in all, I recommend the film..... although I suspect that many female viewers will likely be appalled..... and quite rightly so......

..... in other news, I'm feeling a bit run down and in need of a nap....... and I have a headache...... I'll see you hammerheads tomorrow morning......

Nobody.....

.... the salmon is in the oven, and "The Spy Who Loved Me" is banging out of the television & filling the living room with noise.... it's time to batten down the hatches around here and settle in for the evening.......

... good lord.... Jaws, Egypt, fast cars, gadgets, Bond, and Carly Simon..... my goodness, what's not to like about that film?.....

.... oh, and here, check this out.... definitely one of the best "movie songs" EVER....

.... you know, I think I'll hum that song as I drift off to sleep tonight.....

Movies....

..... you know, this kinda makes sense......

Knights.....

.... I woke up quite early today, and tired of the news immediately.... the false concern of the beefcakes and baby dolls nearly put me right off my coffee & English muffin...... so as you do once your fed up, you flick the channel...... just as I did.....

.... and a fortitudinous & fortunate flick it was, boys & girls...... for I found that "The Man of La Mancha" was just beginning....... good lord, I watched every single moment of it with a smile & a sip of coffee...... I mean, just check out this magnificent scene with Mr. O'Toole......

..... the Quote of The Day, gentle rubberneckers??..... ".. too much sanity may BE madness"..... indeed......

..... and added to the general romance of Don Quixote's tale?.... well, quite possibly the best love song ever written.... "Dulcinea"....

.... and the kicker?...... "The Impossible Dream"...

..... what a wonderful morning of music & thought.....

..... and it sure beat the hell out of watching The News....

Feathers.....

..... this is a Public Service Announcement......

.... this afternoon at 2:00pm, the 1939 classic, "The Four Feathers" is airing on Turner Classic Movies....... if you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and pop the top on your favorite beverage, don your pith helmet, and settle back onto your couch for the afternoon.....

.... I certainly will be.....

Dead......

... I watched the 1950 version of 'D.O.A' today for the very first time, and I have been absolutely consumed with searching for information on Neville Brand ever since....... in short?.... that man was so maniacal that it truly beggars belief.......... sure, Edmond O'Brien bested him in the end, but that isn't really the point....... the point is, Edmond's character was a classic.......... but Brand's?...... he was mesmerizing........ he was nuts........ and he was certainly enjoying his job.....

..... I even did a bit of an imitation of his acting today after dinner...... (... the bit during his car scene in 'D.O.A' where he is telling O'Brien just how much he is going to LOVE torturing and killing him once they arrive at wherever they're going).... good lord, the man was just plain scary.........

..... looking back now?...... well, I think that I scared my Mother at little bit, truth be known......... I hadn't meant to, of course, but hey, I can cackle with the BEST of them........ and after all of these years, the upbringing, the growth, the nurturing, the caring, the spankings, the church outings, and all that worry?...... I think that came as a bit of a surprise for her after I'd grilled cheeseburgers and whipped up an incredibly bland salad for us all for dinner......... I mean, who expects an expertly articulated cackle after a comfortable meal amongst family?...... even if the salad WAS bland.......

....... but hey, life is like that, isn't it?.......... those little sparks are what keep us interested, yes?....... or frightened, maybe......... or, wait...... maybe "interested" is a better analogy......

Clint.....

.... too tired to post tonight, rubberneckers........ it has been a very, very long day........ but I did manage to wander down to Cleveland, TN and have lunch, catch the latest Clint Eastwood flick, and then buy a fancy dinner......... and once home?...... 'Conan The Destroyer' was on television........

.....I ask you, gentle rubbernecker, what better tool is there for combating your woes than watching Wilt Chamberlain, Arnold, and Olivia D'Abo on a chilly January evening with a full tummy and a Clint Eastwood movie under your belt?.......

..... but I swear, the folks who made that movie had no idea of its true potential....... (the Conan movie, not the Eastwood vehicle)....... I mean, Olivia's wardrobe alone is enough to make the movie very nearly criminal in its' portrayal.....

....... and that horn that Conan ripped out once The God was awakened?...... the one that Olivia had dutifully retrieved?...... bloody hell...... I am sure that a generation of young Americans were traumatized AND quite fortified at the same time by the actions of the headlining cast during those final few scenes.........

...... hey, it is no secret that I love all of the Conan movies....... no secret at all....... and also, I have written some pretty raunchy stuff about 'Conan The Destroyer' in the past.... (three years ago, in fact...)....... but tonight, that is pretty far from my mind.......

..... because tonight I just want to go to sleep and dream....... I am TIRED......

1959......

..... I just finished watching the old 1959 version of 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' again.... and damn, I do love that movie..... serving wenches, murders, monsters, lonesome howls out on the moor.... I swear, it is a wonderful movie...... forebodings, Sherlock Holmes, curses, and Christopher Lee as Sir Henry.... it just doesn't get much better than that.....

.... TCM and AMC tend to show it every few months and I always end up tuning in just before the tarantula scene... (where Christopher Lee is about to be bitten in the face and Peter Cushing wicks it off with his cane and beats it to death in the corner)...... but today I watched it from the very beginning.......

.... good god, I was shocked and amazed..... I mean, can you believe that in the "Leave It To Beaver" world of 1959 they aired a movie that opened with a concerned Father being beaten, burned, and tossed into a moat by The Lord of The Manor?..... and then dragged back in - dripping and screaming - to be jeered at, punched, and laughed at by a crew of aristocratic, would-be rapists?.... all while his poor, tightly-corseted daughter cried into her bedchamber's pillows as the gangbangers laughed about their upcoming melee in the hall below?..... I was shocked...... Sir Arthur Conan Doyle must have had a twisted streak two miles wide......

.... I had always imagined that in 1959 the censors had everything pretty much battened down..... no foul language, separate beds for husbands and wives, no kissie-poo with tongue, no smooch to last longer than 10 seconds, etc...... but wow, the beginning of Baskervilles is just plain bawdy....

.... I remember reading Lee's biography a few years ago and loving every word.... it was titled "Tall, Dark, and Gruesome", and I highly recommend it, by the way........

.... the funny thing is, Christopher Lee looked remarkably like a young Nicholas Cage in the flick.....

... anyway, if y'all get a chance to sit through that movie, do yourselves a favor..... Peter Cushing is absolutely fantastic as Holmes..... way, way, WAY better than Rathbone, if I do say so myself...... and hey, it was also mildly refreshing to see Lee in a scene with a buxom lassie that didn't involve blood dripping from a neck or set of fangs.... sure, she still tried to kill him once or twice, but that wasn't really the point....

.... oh, and did you know that Vincent Price and Christopher Lee were both born on the same day?.... the 27th of May..... and Peter Cushing was born on the 26th?..... wow..... all three were close friends, from all accounts...... my goodness..... can't you just imagine what a birthday party THAT must have been?...

Violence.....

...... I awoke this morning in the throes of a horrible dream..... violent, close, sweaty, and bone-crushing...... joints were broken with that familiar pop....... primal anger..... whisky...... yet remarkably controlled & focused...... and by the time I had a pot of coffee down, I was left with one impression that kept running through my head...... Clint friggin' Eastwood.......

.... if you have ten minutes to spare, give this a watch.......... it is the closest that I have come to finding my dream on YouTube.....

..... the scary thing?.... well, I am pretty sure that I was Ned.......

Cooper.....

..... spent the evening re-watching Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe fiddle about underneath waterfalls & run around through the woods in 'The Last of the Mohicans'..... well, I did do some lawn work first, but it was mostly inconsequential......

... anyhoo, how is it that Daniel's flowing locks always looked daisy-fresh while Madeleine always looked like she'd recently been hit by a logging truck with a fully loaded cattle trailer spewing Holstein dung being dragged behind it?.....

..... and Mr. Lewis firing a damnable blackpowder musket in that foggy funk, too??...... I swear, the mind does boggle...... he never broke a sweat nor had the first twig embedded ANYWHERE in his mane during the whole damned movie.....

.... not that I'm a 'hair' kinda guy, not by any stretch, but I'll bet Miss Stowe gave her make-up ladies a Royal Old Time while they squatted out there in the mountains around Asheville attempting to make her look less disheveled than ole Daniel... which, if you really think about it, is kinda sad.....

..... I mean, sure, everyone watches that movie and thinks of the epic scenes of love, revenge, etc..... and hey, what man OR woman hasn't viewed that scene just before he leaped out into the waterfall after saying "Just STAY ALIVE!.... I WILL find YOU", and not shed a tear or two........ but that's 'art', isn't it?..... art is the ideal, and reality is that he'd have an extreme case of bed-hair that would rival one of those rat-like creatures that lives in a burrow somewhere in Africa that I saw on the Discovery Channel recently, and a case of halitosis that would make most women melt into a tiny puddle after one feigning breath.......... but, no..... instead, poor Madeleine is left to only have better eye-shadow and only slightly better lip adjustment.......

......if I were to actually have an imagination?...... I would imagine that James Fenimore Cooper has probably spun in his grave continually since 1992........

.... then again, when the OTHER Munro sister jumped to her death rather than be taken back to Magua's crib for a little slap and tickle, that was kinda inspiring.......

..... so, yes, I spent most of the day doing manual labor and creating 'flower beds'........

... and I was just kidding about that whole Magua/Munro sister thing being inspiring........ that was just in bad taste, and I know it......... but I DO really want a copy of Chingachgook's warclub.......

.... no, seriously..... he rocked with that thing........ and it would look GREAT hanging on the wall of my garage.......

Curtis.....

..... you know, there is just something deeply, deeply wrong with the movie "Some Like It Hot"...... as I type this, The Missus is completely engrossed in it while the lights flicker from approaching thunderstorms.........

... Monroe?..... she's a peach....... and she looks great in glasses (ala 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes')..... but be that as it may, nothing on Earth could ever make up for the trauma of seeing Mr. Lemmon prancing in drag and getting felt-up in an elevator by a horny octogenarian.......

...... I'm sorry, but that is just wrong...... and Tony Curtis?..... Tony should be absolutely fucking ashamed of himself...... sure, he did that whole "sometimes I like snails" thing in Spartacus while giving Laurence a sponge bath, but that just doesn't compare with sharing lipstick with Marilyn when she thinks you're a girl..........

... hey, call me a purist, but hey, that is just plain wrong........

.... Update..... good god, I just heard Curtis bat his eyelashes and yell "A'Hoy There!"....... damn, that is just wrong......